Renekton General Guide by Hothor

Introduction

Hello there everyone, This is my first guide on Mobafire for top lane Renekton and I hope you find it useful. Renekton has become one of my favourite go-to top laners just because of his high sustain and his ability to engage and peel off enemies. "Reign of Anger" is a great way to trade with your opponent and do some nice damage after farming a bit and makes him dangerous to 1v1 when his rage is full. His Q "Cull the Meek" is a great farming tool and also heals himself, giving him the ability to sustain very well. Also his mobility with his E "Slice and Dice" allows him to not only initiate fights but also avoid ganks if caught in a sticky situation and W "Ruthless Predator" allows him to setup ganks in lane and prevent ganks. And finally his ult R "Dominus", is great for baiting opponents, Surviving ganks, and providing AOE (Area of Effect) damage in teamfights.

Pros / Cons

PROS + High Sustain + Mobile + Tanky + Hard to gank + Wrecks a ton

CONS - Falls out late game - Predictable with visible rage bar but not really a big con - Can be vulnerable to some ranged Top Laners

Runes

Greater Mark of Armor penetration Marks I go flat armor pen marks because it provides more damage in late game so he doesn't fall out too badly. It's a lot more difficult to build armor pen than AD and It's debatable whether or not ARP is better than AD vs doing a combination of both. Ultimately you can build either way and it will still work. A lot of this really depends on who you're facing and what compositions you will be going up against. On top of these Marks, "Slice and Dice" adds a little more armor pen to shred down priority targets.

Seals Armor Seals are pretty standard for most champions so you don't get destroyed by AD champs and minions. Highly recommended on Renekton considering he will always be taking some sort of AD damage when dashing into teamfights and trading with his top lane opponents.

Glyphs Magic Resist Glyphs are also pretty standard on most champions to avoid being devoured by AP Carries or AP assassins like Akali, Katarina, etc. All around just good for soaking up damage because most of the time Renekton will be in the middle of fights and someone will have magic damage to dish out. You can also change these to CDR glyphs for higher damage output but make sure you aren't facing a team running with a lot of AP or it can be really dangerous.

Quintessences I use 3 Greater Quintessences of Movement Speed because it is extremely useful for initiating fights and positioning as well as sticking to your key targets. Also Helps for getting away from enemies and really helps during those moments where you're one step away from getting a kill but you're dash is on CD and you can't quite finish the job.

Masteries

We'll start with mastery. For one point this is a decent mastery because it gives you some damage after using Ignite and gives a bonus to Ghost and Exhaust; both of which can be useful to Renekton. Next we have mastery. I take this over mastery because his damage really comes from his abilities and the more you can use them, the more damage you can pump out. mastery is not really a good use of points considering there are more immediately useful options. Renekton doesn't really have any issues with farm so the extra damage to minions isn't necessary. My final choice for the last point I will take in the offensive tree is mastery. I find this extremely valuable to Renekton because Armor Penetration can only be built on a few items. This mastery gives him an advantage against heavily armored Top laners like Garen, Vi, etc.


Now for the Defensive Tree, I dip into mastery first for the health and if you are in the role of Off-Tank bruiser having more health doesn't hurt; giving you more survivability bit by bit every level. I don't put points into mastery because I never really use any of the abilities that are listed in the mastery. Also I skip putting points in mastery because I want to be able to put points into mastery it leads to mastery which is a great choice for early game due to the boost in health.

mastery I avoid because it's more of a jungling choice along with mastery. I feel these aren't valuable masteries to pick up when i'm in a top lane position. Then I put points into mastery for some extra armor which is always good for giving more sustain if trading with my top lane opponent. I take less damage and it gives me a better chance of surviving when getting ganked. is also great for sustain, trading, and team-fights against those pesky AP carries.

For some reduction in slows, I pick up mastery to bust through teams and be able to focus key targets. This mastery is a great addition with Tenacity so it's a well spent point even though I only go one point into it in order to reach the bottom choice mastery. mastery I take mainly to have the option of tower diving if my team plans on trying to shut down top either diving together with my jungler or another combination. The key is to avoid sacrificing too much when tower diving. mastery not a big fan of this unless you're facing a lot of champions with high attack speed. Same goes for mastery because blocking 5 damage on auto attacks is sort of decent, but if you're getting nailed for 200-300 per hit by abilities and auto attacks it's not that significant.

Next up, mastery I think is a great mastery as well, because it also stacks with Tenacity items. For even more health mastery is one of my top favourites. It really shines late game due to the boost in extra health and is nice overall in all stages of the game. I don't take mastery because I want to end games before my team gets too deep into late game. I feel that Renekton starts to fall out late game and his presence just isn't the same by comparison to early and mid. mastery I don't take because unless you're in role of "Main Tank/Initiator" then the benefit isn't significant. You aren't building armor or magic resist to make those percentages matter too much, mastery This is an odd mastery this is because if you're dying a lot, you're probably not doing very well on gold or farm. 10 seconds in late game is decent but for the rest of the game it's a pretty small effect to drop a point into it. To me mastery was the best way to spend the point because 10% reduction from critical strikes is huge when you have those ADCs and APCs in the back trying to bring you down. For the most part Renektons main goal is to put pressure on these high damage champions and lock them down for the rest of your team to either: force them to back away and disengage or they continue to stay in the fight and based on how well you're team plays together they should die if you're on top of them because of your stun. Finally mastery to put it plain and simply, 3% reduction from all damage is well worth one point! As Renkton in top lane I said before you're always going to be taking damage because you need to get close to deal any. I need to be able to stay in fights and stay close to my target in order to do anything useful. This mastery allows me to have reduction to damage so I can stay in even longer.

Summoner Spells

Use of Skills

Laning Phase
When you're in the laning phase the number one priority is to farm but keep in mind farming creeps can push too hard sometimes and can put you in a vulnerable spot if you don't have wards. Using Q too much can put you in that vulnerable spot so be cautious of how often you use it. If you want to harass your opponent to chunk their health a bit, a good way to do that is, build your rage up and W before you decide to go in for any harassment. Use E through a minion or minions that are in the pathway towards your opponent and land W, Auto attack, then E back to your original position. This helps to avoid trading damage with your opponent. Basically if you can keep doing this successfully, you will wear and tear your opponent down for a potential kill or force them to go back, while you free farm creeps. Save your ult for incoming ganks or for extra damage to finish off your laning opponent. Try and build up rage if you can before harassing in any shape or form. Full rage maximizes the damage and healing you get from your Q as well as increases the duration of your stun and armor pen from your dash.

Teamfighting Phase

The end of the laning phase transitions into the Teamfighting phase or Group phase, as some call it. This is a stage of the game where Renekton really shines and you need to capitalize on his strengths. Mid game is where his presence is really noticable and where, in most cases, you want to end games so you can maximize his potential as a champion. Sometimes ending the game in mid game is not possible because of team-mates or what I would say "**** Happens" and you do fall into the late-game. The only reason you want to avoid this is because Renekton's damage is not as high and he has to trade for more tankiness late game to avoid getting destroyed by high geared ADCs or APCs. I am not saying that Renekton is totally worthless late game but he definitely doesn't do the same amount of damage late game and isn't as tanky because of his kit being more of an off-tank bruiser rather than a tanky initiator like Leona or Taric.

In terms of using your skills in team-fights, whoever is initiating fights you want to be fairly close by so you can capitalize on initiation. The goal is getting closer to their ADCs or APCs in the backline by using your E and W to lock them in place so that your team can do the damage needed to bring them down. Make sure you ult before you go into team-fights so that someone with a stun can't just stun you and prevent you from ulting and doing any damage. Renektons ult is such a good sneaky health boost that I can't count the number of times it has saved me.

Item Explanation,

Core Items

Renekton doesn’t have a built in slow so this Item is great for sticking to your opponents. It also has health and AD which are great stats for Renekton as well. This item should be built first in most cases, unless you’re getting beat in lane or need to build more damage to bring down your enemy.


Depending on what the situation is, Brutalizer will need to be built 2nd or 3rd, This item will give you the armor pen, CDR, and AD to increase your damage by a lot to shred down your top lane opponent but also will be handy later on when you can upgrade it to The Black Cleaver.

As for the items above this can also be interchangeable depending on who you’re up against, I usually build this 2nd or 3rd in my item lineup because Phage overall is a better item to have first before Hexdrinker but there can be circumstances where you need the MR from it and the magic shield to survive, over time you will be able to judge when to pick it up or not. It has AD and MR so this a good item to have so you can survive against heavy AP damage dealers and pretty much anyone who does AP damage.

*Note- When you get further into the game, Upgrading your core items should be priority and depending on what you need the upgrade order will be different.

(Ex: Vayne is a fairly mobile ADC, so in order to catch her and stay on her you would want to upgrade Phage to Frozen Mallet so that you can always stick to her in teamfights.)
OR
(Ex: If the enemy team consists of a lot of AP champions and you need to boost your survival to engage fights but still do enough damage to not be ignored, upgrading Hexdrinker to Maw of Malmortius would be a good upgrade to do.)

Situational Items

Is a great item to build if you need more protection against AP casters or assassins such as Katarina, Xerath, Ahri, etc. It also gives CDR, health, and a nice passive that increases healing , regeneration, and drain effects on yourself. Thus being said, Your Q will heal for even more.

A whopping 1000 health and health regen, this item will be needed on occasions that you need to transition into a tank or if you need the extra health to stay in fights.

Not only is this a good item against a mostly melee composition but it combos nicely with Renektons ult Dominus and gives some extra damage.

In most matches that go into late game, Atma’s is a pretty good choice to not only boost your armor but boost your damage. As Renekton you will typically be around 3K health at 18 with a few upgraded items. Which will boost your AD along with having 15 critical strike chance.

This item is more of defensive item for when you have a fed enemy ADC or a lot of AD being thrown around, grab this if you are losing in teamfights due to a fed AD champ (Mostly fed ADCs).

If you’re getting focused a lot in teamfights pick this item up, In most situations in a teamfight they shouldn’t be focusing you that much but depending on what’s happening and what kind of composition they have they might. Gives defensive stats and if you die in a middle of a fight there are two options. One, You can choose to get back into the fight if you think you can turn the fight around and if you aren’t in a bad position or two try to escape and dash away.

Offensive Items

This is for when you really need to pump out some damage and or if you’re fed. All the stats on this item work well with Renekton except for the attack speed, other than that I think it’s a really great item along with it’s passive and active. It also synergizes with Last Whisper and your dash armor shred.

Pretty straight forward 35% armor pen and 40 extra AD making your attacks pretty dangerous as well as getting armor pen from your dash making your armor pen extremely high.

Items I didn’t include but could be used as well

Not that I don’t like this item or think that it’s not useful but as Renekton I think you need to be able to maximize damage as much as possible and you could trade thornmail for this item if you think it would be more useful depending on the situation. I feel this item is really meant for hardcore tank champions and Renekton is more of a off-tank bruiser and needs some damage so you don’t get ignored in teamfights.

Pretty much the same thing as Randuin’s, Unless you’re the sole tank in the group I wouldn’t go for this, In most cases your support or your jungler should have this item.

Health is good, Armor is great, CDR also good, and health regen too but similar to what I was talking about with Randuin’s it’s not as useful as other items but like I said depending on the circumstance and you’re tanking I think this is a good grab.

I think overall it’s a pretty good offensive item but it lacks health and it is fairly expensive so unless you’re really fed I don’t really recommend getting it.

After looking at this item in comparison to Blade of the Ruined King as an offensive item, I felt that BOTRK was a better choice just for the simple fact that the passive and active are more valuable than the extra AD and LS for Renekton, Why? Initially BT has lower LS than BOTRK and basic attacks take 5% hp off every hit, Plus if you want some extra burst you can use BOTRK’s active.

I wanted to add this to the situational items list but I felt that it was really expensive and would force out better items that have health on them. The last thing you want to do is make Renekton a glass cannon, so make sure you balance enough health before grabbing this item and ask yourself if it’s really worth getting if you’re going up against a hard-core CC composition.

Definitely would classify as an offensive item, Fairly cost effective but attack speed isn’t that valueable to Renekton. The CDR and armor pen is also great but considering the armor pen is flat armor pen rather than percentage it’s not going to show a significant amount compared to last whisper. The active is mediocre at best, the movement speed is an alright boost but the attack speed won’t make a huge difference in damage considering Renekton relies more on his CD’s to do damage. Plus the armor pen passive pen passive won’t stack with other armor pen items, You’re better off getting The Black Cleaver.

Credits/Last Words

*I would like to thank Jhoijhoi, for her awesome guide to making a guide. There was no way I could have done this without that guide.

*Keep in mind this guide is just that, a guide. There can be variations to what I build and they can work just fine and depending on who you're facing, the items, masteries, and runes can change.

*I want to add to this guide eventually, aka a more indepth guide on how to play Renekton.

*Feel free to comment with some constructive criticism about the guide. I think this is a pretty good way to play him but there are always different, and could be even more ways to improve his game-play and build.

*And for those who don't get why I put "Wrecking-a-ton" as the title, my wife and I came up with it when on a goofy gaming weekend binge and it stuck as a fun nickname :P

*Lastly let me know if this guide has really worked for you. Feedback helps determine whether I need to tweak my guide or not. Also, this is my first time making a guide, so let me know if I have made a critical mistake that needs to be corrected!

*A big thanks to my editors, They were a huge help!

*Thanks for reading! See you ingame!

Change Log

2013-07-03 Added item explanation section + Removed starting items for a safe start + Added BOTRK in place of Bloodthirster.