4.6 Patch Forecast: Not too long ago, the holy trinity of top laners dominated the top lane; Renekton, Dr. Mundo, and Shyvana were the only three champions seen in competitive play. Each of them filled their niche of sustained damage with extreme tankiness with little variety in playstyle. Riot addressed this lack of champion diversity in their



Let’s fast forward to LCS Week 11, Patch 4.12. Renekton has been picked 3 of 33 games - a 9.09% play rate in the LCS. In North America, he wasn't played during the Superweek at all. Why has the champion that Riot says they balance the top lane around dropped out of competitive play? Did the Renekton Bar fail?







In patch 4.5, Riot nerfed Renekton’s early game dominance from his ultimate. Ironically, a week after this patch Riot released the “Renekton Bar” statement: that they wanted to buff other champions and not nerf Renekton’s early game.



Funnily enough, in the Patch 4.6 Forecast, they mentioned how nerfing Renekton “would potentially create an even more unhealthy situation where a different champion rises to the top and acts as the new ‘bar.’” Although there isn’t a singular overpowered champion anymore, top laners are becoming homogeneous - they have to scale well into the late game.







There is no doubt that recent buffs to Teleport also crippled hard snowballing top laners. Lane opponents now have the luxury of a free recall if trades come out poorly, and if at any point when they can be all-inned. Even if a top laner does manage to pull off a solo kill, the enemy laner can immediately teleport back to lane to lower the amount of gold and experience denied. The value of a solo kill is worth much less than before because of how forgiving the game is becoming.



How does this relate back to the “Renekton Bar”? Two reasons - first, the concept of Renekton is an early game bully who doesn’t scale well into the late game. If Teleport makes his ability to all in less powerful - especially with the necessity of packing Ignite to get a kill after Renekton’s early game nerfs - Renekton is unable to deny the enemy top laner. Second, a top laner who packs Teleport will be more influential than the enemy top laner who packs Ignite later in the game because of the increased map and objective control. Therefore, not only does Teleport provide a safety net for laning, it also scales better as the game progresses.









In lieu of painful lane swaps, several very impactful changes were made to the early game tempo; turrets were made much stronger and the experience range of minion death was increased significantly. This was to help prevent early dives on top laners, but increase the value of early kills. However, two more problems occurred with these changes.



First, teams will still lane swap if they feel the enemy lane has too much early game strength, which often happens on blue side if their 2v2 matchup is too weak. Second, Renekton actually isn’t strong enough to compete with current top laners while providing the level of scaling they do. Champion like Gragas, Maokai, and Lulu all can do Renekton’s job of bullying enemy champions out of lane better while being exponentially more useful later in the game - all without the need of Ignite.

Balance changes like Gragas’s Barrel Roll nerf are probably the direction Riot will aim for from now on. These changes are both clunky and specific - they forcefully add depth to the character while addressing specific abusive attributes from them.







So, back to the question at hand. Did the “Renekton Bar” fail? I’ll leave that up for the reader to decide, but it certainly seems that the scale has been tipped.





By Dan “BonkCushy” Cushing. Let’s fast forward to LCS Week 11, Patch 4.12. Renekton has been picked 3 of 33 games - a 9.09% play rate in the LCS. In North America, he wasn't played during the Superweek at all. Why has the champion that Riot says they balance the top lane around dropped out of competitive play? Did the Renekton Bar fail?In patch 4.5, Riot nerfed Renekton’s early game dominance from his ultimate. Ironically, a week after this patch Riot released the “Renekton Bar” statement: that they wanted to buff other champions andFunnily enough, in the Patch 4.6 Forecast, they mentioned how nerfing Renekton “would potentially create an even more unhealthy situation where a different champion rises to the top and acts as the new ‘bar.’” Although there isn’t a singular overpowered champion anymore, top laners are becoming homogeneous -There is no doubt that recent buffs to Teleport also crippled hard snowballing top laners. Lane opponents now have the luxury of a free recall if trades come out poorly, and if at any point when they can be all-inned. Even if a top laner does manage to pull off a solo kill, the enemy laner can immediately teleport back to lane to lower the amount of gold and experience denied.because of how forgiving the game is becoming.How does this relate back to the “Renekton Bar”? Two reasons - first, the concept of Renekton is an early game bully who doesn’t scale well into the late game. If Teleport makes his ability to all in less powerful - especially with the necessity of packing Ignite to get a kill after Renekton’s early game nerfs - Renekton is unable to deny the enemy top laner. Second, a top laner who packs Teleport will be more influential than the enemy top laner who packs Ignite later in the game because of the increased map and objective control. Therefore, not only does Teleport provide a safety net for laning, it also scales better as the game progresses.In lieu of painful lane swaps, several very impactful changes were made to the early game tempo; turrets were made much stronger and the experience range of minion death was increased significantly. This was to help prevent early dives on top laners, but increase the value of early kills. However, two more problems occurred with these changes.First, teams will still lane swap if they feel the enemy lane has too much early game strength, which often happens on blue side if their 2v2 matchup is too weak. Second, Renekton actually isn’t strong enough to compete with current top laners while providing the level of scaling they do. Champion like Gragas, Maokai, and Lulu all can do Renekton’s job of bullying enemy champions out of lane better while being exponentially more useful later in the game - all without the need of Ignite.Balance changes like Gragas’s Barrel Roll nerf are probably the direction Riot will aim for from now on. These changes are both clunky and specific - they forcefully add depth to the character while addressing specific abusive attributes from them.So, back to the question at hand. Did the “Renekton Bar” fail? I’ll leave that up for the reader to decide, but it certainly seems that the scale has been tipped. 8196851 , Thursday, 07/08/14 14:40