New season, new runes and new combinations - how to make Rengar a strong laner and how to use the new Runes effectively, i will explain in my guide.
Enjoy and take your time to experience Rengar :)

Starting of with this little question because I hear it quite often and now I want to explain it in my guide.
My build and my way to play fit to gether very well. I pick Exhaust top because

• Rengar doesnt have much cc and Rengar doesnt have a good escape (without a bush or his ult) - Exhaust slows

• If you get ganked and you see no way to get out or kill your enemies, Exhaust helps by slowing a target -> and reducing its dmg if you already get attacked

• In team fights in the late game Exhaust is extremely powerful as it takes 40% of the damgage of the champion that you exhausted

So Exhaust can be used aggressively to catch and kill an enemy or defensively to escape if you lose a fight or you get chased.


You can do the classic lvl 2 (or 3) engage, when you have full ferocity (-> stacks)
means: get full stacks and lvl 2/3 (before your enemy reaches lvl 2), jump on him, while you are in the jump you press (Q) and exhaust the enemy, after you jumped on him you do an auto hit, then (Q) again and (W) and more autohits

for short: get stacks, get lvl 2 or 3, jump on enemy champ, exhaust enemy champ, do (Q), auto hit, (Q), (W), auto hits... and the next (Q) (if your enemy didnt already Flash

With this tactic you get the enemy's Flash or first blood.
The first blood is even safer if u do poke dmg in lvl 1 (do it when there is still the first minion wave) you go in a bush, jump on your enemy, the first hit is done by just jumping on the target, after that press (Q) for the auto hit reset and more dmg (but dont let him trade you!)
do this 2 or 3 times and the engage will have more succes.

If he flashes or you get first blood you will have safer farm, get the items faster and do more kills.

Other Spells

Teleport definitely is a spell you can take for Rengar top but then there is the question - what do you do in the early and mid game if you have (for example) Renekton as enemy laner and you completely lose your lane? Of course you could Teleport bot lane and try to gank there but you cannot stop Renekton or win a trade against him. You eventually get completely destroyed and ganked/dived - Exhaust gives you more control over the lane and your enemy. Maybe if you feel so comfortable that you dont need Exhaust, you can just take Teleport.

In the early and mid game Ignite might deal some damage but it does almost nothing in the late game as everydody has more hp. In most cases Ignite wont help you as much when you want to win a fight - it helps you if you are already ahead but if you fall behind as an Assassin, Ignite is just for fun or useless on Rengar top in my opinion. If you feel like you can stomp your opponent easily, Ignite might be vailable.

Now im gonna explain how i play Rengar and i think thats the best way to make use out of this champion.

Its all about Rengars passive (the Ferocity ) - you walk into a bush and then you can leap on an enemy unit (wards, champions, turrets, etc) in a certain radius.
This ability allows Rengar to get super high mobility on lane and its also that what makes Rengar top viable.

You use the leap to farm cuz you can easily reach any minion out of the bush and also zone your enemy laner - therefore i buy Phage first which gives Rengar even more mobility as he gets faster into the bushes and this indirectly increases his attackspeed if the leap is rather short and repeated often (for example while farming).
The phage's(later black cleaver's) Movement Speed also adds on to the extra MS that Rengar gets by using his empowered abilities.
The reason why Black Cleaver is so good to build first on Renger is that he lives from his cdr and during trades he can easily get the 6 armor-shredding stacks off because he can jump so many times on the top lane and everytime get back into that bush even faster cuz of the phage passive (as i just said). Its like this item was made just for Rengar.

Moreover you can use the leap with empowered (W) (or sometimes just the leap) to get to your target faster, escape or to dodge some skill shots (you can also just dodge stuff by jumping out of the bush or waiting for the enemy to cast the ability so that you have enough time to react and easily dodge the shot)
Everytime when you have 0 ferocity stacks you simply gotta jump out of a bush to get the first one, this even works in combat. But i would not engage without at least 3 stacks of ferocity if im not 100% sure that i win the trade, only in lvl 1 or 2 you can jump in with 1 or 2 stacks if you wanna make it a quick poke and not get destroyed by surprise.

Play Video


Another tip would be to use bushes to chase as long as your enemy is in range because just running after your target wont work as good cuz Rengar got an AA range of 125 which is the lowest (with some other champs) range in game. To make it clear, you if you can use a bush to catch up on your opponent, just do it - dont just run after him like a dog and follow your enemy under the turret cuz Rengar got an auto attack range like a T-rex.
It would be good if you can hit your (E) first when you and your enemy are close to a bush, then you have more time to walk in there and still have him in range (which is 725 and definitely way better than 125).

This means that when ever you get the chance to trade in some bushes (and the enemies have no vision in the best case) you will have a nice advantage.

Play Video


Zoning your opponent works pretty well (when you are ahead) because you have so much range in the bushes. As you last hit out of the bush that is the closest to the minions you wanna farm and the enemy laner's tier 1 turret, you can just jump on your enemy as he tries to somehow last hit his farm and punish him for that mistake. The minions will usually never get out of your leap range and so the enemy is forced to come into that range where you can get him or he decides to miss all cs and maybe even experience.

But NEVER FORGET TO WARD that jgl or you will get ganked a lot and probably die cuz its really hard to keep all that in mind, always react to your laner's actions correctly and watch the map every few seconds.

Well, even if its hard and takes some practice, it is really helpful for everybody if you have map awareness and that you can track the enemy jgl and help out if your jungler/ mid laner needs some help near you.

Play Video

As you probably noticed already, I chose Domination as primary path and went with Sorcery as secondary path:

Domination:

Dark Harvest Dark Harvest works best with a lot of stacks which means its strongest in the late game. You gain 2 stacks for a large jungle monster, 4 stacks for a canon minion and 6 stacks for a champion (can be from either team) but you gotta stay near all those when they die or else they wont drop the stack for you to pick up. Until 150 stacks your empowered AA will last 20 sec (only activates on champs or turrets) and after 150+ your empowered hit lasts for 3 minutes. As soon as you collect one (soul)stack you can instantly use the empowered AA so it can activate several times during a team fight.

Sudden Impact Sudden Impact is a great rune that was practically made for Rengar. After exiting stealth, using a dash, blink or Teleport, damaging a champion grants 10 Lethality and 8 Magic Penetration for the next 5 seconds. As i already explained, this rune works well as poke but also after using your (R) Thrill of the Hunt if you want to do a classic all-in.

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Ghost Poro / Eyeball Collection The rune Ghost Poro lets you summon a poro which grants you vision in a small radius, after you entered a bush - you just have to be in that bush for like 2 sec to spawn it. As soon as an enemy enters that bush and gets in the poro's radius (no matter if the enemy is stealthed or not) the poro will run away and will ping his team before going on cooldown for a short while. -> Use this if you would like to have some more vision and maybe make some vision plays, I dont think its necessary to choose this because I just always farm out of the 3 top lane bushes and the poro would just sit there and not allert me when the enemy jungler ganks. With Eyeball Collection you just collect some adaptive AD or AP by champion takedowns (2) and ward takedowns (1). You gain 1 Ap or 0.6 AD per Eyeball, 20 AP/ 12 AD at max.

Ravenous Hunter Ravenous Hunter shall help you in many ways - it gives you more sustain on lane and in fights. You heal for 2.5% (+2.5% for each unique champion takedown) of the damage you deal with your abilities (but healing is reduced by one third for AoE abilities :/) . The takedown-thing is favorable for Rengar as he has to get these kills anyways to get all stacks for his passive Bonetooth Necklace. Another reason why i chose this rune is that you can get 30% healing from your abilities (10% with AoE) -which is a LOT- if you buy Death's Dance.

Sorcery:

Transcendence

Gathering Storm

Other possible Runes:

If you would like some extra power in the early game and you feel like that match wont take 40 to 50 min, then its probably a good choice to pick Precision as the secondary rune path.

Precision:

Triumph

Coup de Grace

With this build and playstyle we got some Pros and Cons!

Pros:

+ High moblility in jungle and with Thrill of the Hunt (R)

+ High outplay pontential

+ Squishy targets can get eleminated instantly

+ Low cooldowns

+ Nice roaming with Thrill of the Hunt (R)


Cons:

- Not the best teamfighter

- Can be useless or broken (useless if he has no kills/ if he is behind)

- He relies on Thrill of the Hunt (R) for kill potential

- Control wards counter Rengar!

- No escape without a bush/ Thrill of the Hunt (R)

• His Passive ability Unseen Predator to jump from a bush on an enemy got now 725 range

• His full Ferocity stacks that he gets by attacking an enemy with an ability are reached with 4 stacks. If you are out of combat (6 sec in wich he doesnt take or deal any dmg) his stacks will instantly disappear or after Rengar used an empowered ability the stacks will disappear as well and he gets increased Movement Speed by 30/40/50 % for 1.5 seconds. If Rengar leaps on an enemy after he (Rengar) was out of of combat(or just has 0 stacks), he will gain 1 Ferocity just by the jump - use this to gain full stacks faster in combat (leap on a target+ Q,E,W = full Ferocity ).
If you have all 4 stacks, your next ability (except R/Ult) is empowered: Q, W and E will deal more damage and each of them has an extra effect which i will explain in the following context.

• With the Bonetooth Necklace you can get 5 trophies by killing an unique enemy champion + you have to take 1 sec dmg from him before he dies by your attacks. Above your items you will see all the enemy champions you havent killed yet. The Trophies will give you:
- 1 Kill: 1% Bonus AD
- 2 Kills: 4% Bonus AD
- 3 Kills: 9% Bonus AD
- 4 Kills: 16% Bonus AD
- 5 Kills: 25% Bonus AD
( The Head of Kha'Zix: 36% Bonus AD)


• His (Q) Savagery will empower the next AA and grant you extra attack speed for the next 2 AAs.
The empowered (Q) will deal significantly more dmg and increase your attackspeed by 50% for the next few seconds.


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• The Battle Roar (W) heals Rengar for 50% of the damage he took in the last 1.5 seconds and the damage healed from monster attacks is increased by 75%.
The empowered (W) removes existing crowd control effects in additions to its normal heal.






• The (E) Bola Strike slows for up to 90%. The empowered (E) roots/snares one enemy.







• Thrill of the Hunt (R):
While active, Rengar gains 40% Movement Speed and vision of the nearest enemy champion who he can leap to for a guaranteed critical strike. Attacking or casting most spells end Thrill of the Hunt. If you use your ult you will always instantly get the movement speed but there is a range in that you are visible in (works like evelynn's passive). If you dont have vision (for example) in the enemy jgl and you use Thrill of the hunt, you will only be able to see the champion in the jgl who is the closest to you - you also only crit the enemy champ that is the closest to you, which can be a difficulty in a teamfight.








The Skill Sequence

With the new Rengar its better if you max his (E) Bola Strike after (Q) Savagery - the Battle Roar (W) wont heal you more if you got low hp, it just gives you a part of the health back that you lost the last 1.5 sec.
But you better still keep the early game order Q -> W -> E in lvl 1 til 3

If you liked this Guide, I've made another one for Rengar where I explain how to get the most sustain on the top lane, combined with damage and strong impact on the game.

My other Guide -> [Season 8.13] Jumping Kitten Top and Jungle - Rengar is BACK!

I really put some time and effort in this so I would be glad if you could check it out :)

Thank you so much for reading this guide, I really hope it helps you to get better with Rengar and I also would really appreciate it if you checked out my >first Guide< for Rengar.


Have a nice day! :D