I like the attack speed on empowered hit idea. The bonus AD from CSing is a little much. Even at .1% it would become obscene in situations that are very common in middle level play (like 200+cs games) where it becomes 20% bonus AD and suddenly a full build Renekton's passive is worth more than a BF Sword, on top of already giving him a huge situational AS buff. I feel like before Riot buffs anything they need to give Ruthless Predator a snappy animation, and change its nature from the attack that procs it swinging twice or thrice to swinging harder, so he has an autoattack animation's worth of surpression instead of half a second or more on the unempowered, and a little longer when empowered. After that's done, Riot should see how he performs before making any further decisions. Us Renekton players will have to wait a while before seeing a change, but Renekton isn't inviable, just a little lackluster. There are many other champions that need the attention more than Renekton. In my humble opinion, priority for changes should start with the lowest winrate champions who haven't undergone recent changes, followed by highest ban rate then highest winrate. The reason for this is that the lowest winrate champions usually have some serious flaw preventing them from winning, which means other changes won't affect them as much (barring high skill requirement champs like Syndra), High winrate champions are sometimes just champions who's best clear counters are regularly banned, and high ban rate champions need to be addressed, so if addressing them might solve a high win rate issue that should be done first, lest fixing them after nerfing a high winrate champ make them too easy to counterpick.

I used to main Renekton. I played him a lot back at the start of S2 until I realized just how terrible he was.

Two simple fixes would make Ren fine. The first is change his ultimate from magic damage to physical. That would give Ren a TON of team fighting utility as he could build a BC and then get tanky, and essentially provide his team with an armor shred aura. It would also help his ult scale a bit better. It would still have an AP ratio...so it still deals **** base damage...but at least the base damage is going to better use with his armor penetration.

The second fix is his passive. just give him one...a real one. Maybe, whenever Renekton uses an empowered attack, his next auto attack slows or deals bonus damage, or makes them bleed. Or whenever he uses an empowered attack all his CDs are reduced by 1 second.

Maybe you're right, but i think its a really nice idea because you HAVE to build a significant amount of armor and magic resistance late game in order to survive. Renekton's ult is nothing but a sunfire cape with no armor bonus, its quite useless. Thats why i think its a lot better if they changed the passive to bonus AS after using an empowered ability and bonus % AD per creep killed. Again, maybe 40% is too much, maybe 20% bonus attackspeed for 5 seconds after using an empowered ability to let him get his fury faster, but i actually think that by introducing the % AD bonus, Renekton will become a much better late game champion and actually contend with other late game champs like Darius, Jax and Olaf

Criting someone early with W is game changing. And quite painful!

My thoughts on buffing Renekton have always been pretty simple!

1. Buff Passive/Rage Generation!
2. Buff Ultimate!
3. Buff Tankyness either innately or via steroid!

His passive is outright horrible especially considering the fine line he treads between being a tanky walking stun or a damage dealer. It's been suggested a million times that his innate passive be changed to "Gain 1% more fury for each missing % health" instead of 50% more fury when below 50% health. This just makes sense and is a downright must! I would add more and there is a simple reason as to why. Renekton is the flagship fury champion, but has by far the worst generation and utilization of the mechanic. I would in addition to his improved passive add two functions that scale per level. Reduced fury decay over time and gaining some amount of fury upon receiving damage as the game progresses. When Renekton is behind a good laner will play aggressively and deny him the fury he needs to keep his damage relevant enough to bounce back, which is a problem unique to him. Having him gain fury when hit would make his life slightly easier in a losing lane which would synergize with his new passive...This would make it so that when he is high on health and ahead the fury gained would be less relevant compaired to when he has lost the lane. Renekton needs to be in the middle of a team to generate enough fury to be useful and is no where near tanky enough to achieve this. He can do well in a situation where he engages with some, but when teams have protracted poke battles he is often left with none by the time the battle starts. Reduced fury decay could help him maintain fury when crossing the map of in such a situation as described.

Given the suggestions I made for his passive I would solve the next 2 problems in one go. His ultimate is very lackluster. It is realistically a glorified heal attached to 15 seconds of Dr.Mundo's burning agony with worst scaling that in all probability he will never build into [save maybe Gunblade, which I have never seen done effectively]. Some others may have mentioned this, but making the damage physical would help make the damage relevant and improve synergy with the new black cleaver. I would do that and reduce the base damage, but add scaling to a stat that would make the damage semi-relevant. My choice would be bonus health! It means that his ult will scale with the health it provides and something he will in all likely-hood benefit from building. At the same time with the right ratios it wouldn't be abusable since it lasts for 15 seconds, so building an HP Renekton would rob you of the damage you need to be relevant outside of when you ult.

Lastly, I would fix his tankyness problem with his ult by attaching a leeching effect to it much like Nasus'. This effect would increase his Armor and MR based on some % of the damage dealt to champions over the duration of his ult. This would allow him to build as an off-tank and do his job of being a disruptor late game. It would actually reward him for being where you want to put him in the first place, in the middle of the enemy team. It would also synergize with the rest of the aforementioned changes. It could also be balanced in such a way that it would not be overpowered in solo lane, but would be a noticeable improvement say if you can keep 3 or more champs in it. This is also an answer to the meta evolving around bruisers that have a combination defensive steroids/abilities and escapes in their kits.

He has other problems like his lack of true range and his response to it pushing lane and putting him out of position, but these problems are part of his personality as a champion. I would much rather fix what he is and make him work to the feel they intended than rewrite his kit!

I think one of the things Renekton suffers from is that people feel the need to build him tanky. Renekton's kit (if they fix his W) is much more conducive to being an assassin. He has an in, an out, (E first cast, E second cast) a decent stun, a large damage spell, good auto attack damage and a panic-button ultimate with no cost on a short cooldown. Yeah some resistances are good, but I disagree with your statement that Renekton needs to build significant armor/mr. A Maw and/or Atma's are all you really need. Atma's also synergizes with his ultimate (giving him 7.5/11.25/15 bonus AD and 270 effective extra health against physical damage off his ultimate bonus alone) It's a fairly cheap item, and by the time you can buy it you'll already be at such a level that even if you built no HP at all it's cost effective while not in ultimate, gets even better when you have ult, and still better when you finish your Black Cleaver. One or two bruiser items are really all Renekton needs, you shouldn't be running right through the enemy team like a bruiser, you should be catching enemies out of position and nuking them down with your kit before they can be a threat in the first place. Renekton's ult is more significant in single or dual combat, in teamfights the amount of HP it gives pales in comparison to the amount of damage you're subject to.

EDIT: Adding another response
This is actually an interesting idea, though I'd say making only one change to his ult would be enough. Give it an armor/mr LEECH similar to Trundle's but a much lower rate (flat per second with no scaling rather than percent), having it be flat would give it synergy with The Black Cleaver, and it need only be a small shred, as Renekton is, again, only .2 percentage points below the average win rate and isn't in desperate need of a buff. Having his ult apply Black Cleaver stacks by making it physical would be too much. I disagree with the idea that Renekton should be played as an off-tank, bruiser or tank, I consider him an assassin because it's what his kit suggests and what he's good at, but I do recognize that he works as a tank (because of that one skill, because ultimate is the only skill that matters) and think this would make him a more viable tank, while only slightly helping Assassin Renekton (as he can't stay in the fight long enough to make a flat shred over time useful)

Sorry for the way I worded that, by leech I didn't mean steal and the word leech used to be in the description for Nasus's ult. I meant simply that he would gain Armor/MR based on the damage he dealt. Compounding shred ontop of black cleaver was far from my intention.

As for Renekton being an assassin, seriously? He is classed as a melee and as a fighter period. With some AD and full fury he can act as one if he makes it to someone squishy, but there in lies the problem...His effective range to "get in and get out" is 450. Well within the ranges of a lot of the opposing team's CC not to mention that this means being out of position or going through the front line to get to the back, which removes the ability to escape with dice if you need to use it to reach your target. If you are CC'd having better sustain won't help you if you get dropped or disengaged. Not to mention Ruthless Predator's self CC.

Renekton was designed as an aggressive lane bully in a time when ranged top outside of Vlad wasn't very common. He won lane by cheesing and maintaining level advantage. He was a little too good at what he did when he was released[kind of a wall in lane]. His sustain was slowly whittled down over a few nerf to counteract this, but he was forgotten as he fell out of favor and the meta changed. Pushing became a bad thing and other champions began to out damage and out sustain him. Now lane bullies like Darius are designed with the mistakes made with Renekton in mind.

You can take a trip back in a time machine and check out his old champion spotlight if you don't believe me [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDXEHgsLfeM]. Simply, because you like to play him as an assassin does not mean he was designed to be one. He lacks pretty much all of the earmarks of an assassin, aside from his hit and run style...Made to force bad trades with other melee. As a matter of fact, his flow oriented play runs counter intuitive to it!

I was actually suggesting a proper leeching effect as a better alternative, as, again, it would give him some tankiness while also improving his burst and rewarding him for being in the middle of a teamfight. Currently Renekton's best way to use his full burst is to slice-and-dice through the enemy team immediately after your initiator starts a fight, applying Dice's shred to as many champs as possible (if you have fury at the time) or slice-cull-dice if you don't have fury, jumping to the carry and nuking them dead, then ulting and either rejoining the fight or running away depending on how the fight is going. An alternative to this, if you don't have something like cleans or QSS or your team needs you to hold down their carry before the engagement for some ungodly reason, you can wrap around and slice right onto their carry from a favorable position, stun, cull, ult and dice through the enemy team or just away as your team engages (you shouldn't do this unless your team is going to engage at the same time as you jump the enemy carry)

Riot's champion listing isn't all-inclusive, Elise isn't tasked as an assassin either, yet looking at her kit it's among her strongest playstyles. Saying "Riot listed X champion as Y role" doesn't make an argument at all, especially when Riot has said that their champion roles aren't intended to be all-inclusive. With regards to enemy CC range, assassins rely on enemies blowing their CC on your team BEFORE going in, or carrying QSS to get in, do their damage, escape CC and leave, both of which are good ways of making use of Renekton, especially with Mercurial Scimitar being a thing now for teamfights later in the game, this is vary viable on Renekton and works very well.

While tags are not all-inclusive, which I understand, they are also there for a reason. Champions much like tools are designed for a purpose, the tags outline innate traits and purposes that champions may be best suited for. Like being able to do surgery with a pen knife over a scalpel. If you run a top assassin, you have a heavy impact on your team weakening your frontlines later on and forcing tanking roles into other positions [support tanks and jungle tanks].

I think Elise is an example often used and used incorrectly. She is designed to be a sustained damage high utility champion. On the other hand people see Rappel and Venous bite...Then they say, a gap closer/mobility and execute well she must be an assassin. With this mentality the same can be of Garen or Riven. If we look closer though we can see that, Spider Form adds a defense steroid and makes her melee while giving her additional sustain and sustained damage. Her execute is and rappel do not make the sole of her kit and are better used to pick off fleeing enemies than to actually assassinate [100-0].

True assassins are not facilitated by their teams, they are enhanced by them. They also generally are better suited for mid, save few examples like the hybrid assassins, jungle/assassins or a true bruiser/assassin like poppy.

Renekton's mobility is weak and situational at best, his burst is reliant on fury which is a flow based mechanic designed for sustained engagements. Can he be played as an assassin, yes...Is he designed to be played as one, no! You can run fiddlesticks as critlesticks [RADC], but that doesn't make it a great idea when faces with a competent opponent. I'd say that the majority of the community plays him as a bruiser/off-tank, so that is how I would try to balance him.

Your analogy about tools is sort of correct, but kind of misleading as well. Gragas is listed as Fighter, Melee, period, clearly bruiser is his best role, and he should be played top, build trinity force and off-tank items. This exactly parallels your usage of Renekton's classification as a melee fighter.

True assassins are, in fact, facilitated by their team, not in the sense that they can't do their job without their team (and Renekton can jump and kill someone without his team very well), but in the sense that the odds of them dying in the process of doing their job increases exponentially without their team (also true of assassin Renekton) I didn't say he was designed as an assassin, I said that his kit works for it and that I feel it's the best way to play him as he currently is, and balancing a champion around how people try to play him would be dumb, that's like saying they should turn Urgot into an Ranged AD carry because that's how people try to play him. Top Bruiser Draven was a thing for a while, should they balance Draven around that?