pre-6:

Yes, Rengar is better than WW, which is what i said. But it's still really awful (worse than Skarner) and Skarner is not known for being an early-game ganker.

He is much more capable of low-level jungle brawls. He might farm slightly faster, but WW can farm forever so it's kinda a draw there. This is why Rengar is more viable in competitive play than WW.

Level 6:

i really disagree with your assessment of power. Without flash, Rengar has one of the better ganks. (i'd say Lee, Elise, Panth, Evelynn all offer stronger ganks level 6 without flash). With flash? Rengar has some of the worse ganks (it only helps to counter their flash). You're competing with flash-Mao, flash-Vi, ult-flash-panth, flash-Amumu...

End Game Initiation:

It's very similar to the level 6. With flash? His initiation is going to be inferior. Without flash? It will be better than most. Luckily for him, he doesn't fall off quite so much as the "flashless initiators" listed above, so he's got that going for him. i find that, very often, in end-game teamfights most teams have flash up on all their heroes at the start of any particular siege. It might not stay that way (an Aniva wall or Blitz hook forces a flash), but i don't think that having to wait 20-30 seconds for a game-winning teamfight is a particular disadvantage.

RE: Tank CDR jungle Rengar

Rengar has been played a few times now in the NA LCS seen. I have watched several of the games with the Tank CDR Rengar build and have been completely underwhelmed. Early to mid game he does fine but nothing the big 3 (eve, lee, spider lady) can't do the same or better. Late game I have seen him become completely useless. His initiation onto a squishy target late game basically does nothing. The amount of peel teams have at that point make rengar's initiation kind of a joke. He does literally zero damage with the full tank build so jumping onto that squishy ADC doesn't really matter because the squish ADC gets tickled by your damage and instantly cleansed by crucible/QSS sword thing, they have a banshees vail or you miss your shit completely. I have really only seen him picked up when better options are not available. 

Well that is the LCS but for us little people I feel like jungle rengar has more of an impact when built glass cannon. On that note I hate glass cannon - melee range champions as they are not safe picks ever. I would much rather have almost any other jungler (except maybe shaco, yi) then rengar at the skill level we play at. They are more reliable and WAY more relivant if they get shut down early game than rengar. Who cares about an 0-6 rengar at 20 minutes? I would much rather have an 0-6 Vi, WW, amumu, Mao kai, Nautilus, Udyr, Xin, Chogath, fiddle sticks, you get the idea type of champion where there ults/skills will ALWAYS be useful regardless of how poorly they started the match.   

to be fair, Rengar is going to have better damage in soloQ because he's going to have a decent number of bonetooth stacks + feral flame stacks.

Well, keep in mind the big bonus with him is the 1.75 + 1.75 of snare + the invis initiate.  Most games even with bonetooth + ff stacks its not good enough imo.  Feel like its too niche

I'd just say that Rengar is probably viable and if someone really loves the champ, then they should play him until they're super good with him.  After that, all the points Cow and Hedgie brought up don't really matter in Gold/Plat/Low Diamond soloqueue.

If someone wants the best chance to win while playing Jungle, they should get good at the big three and J4 or whomever they think will be part of the next big three when the current ones get the nerfs that are already in the pipeline for them.

Are you all just debating this and Gangplank's strengths/weaknesses and whatever comes up next as an academic exercise?  Because I'm not sure if these talks are ever going to solve what I see as a source of contention between all of us:

People in our group don't want to play God Tier/OP/FotM/Cheese whatever you want to call them champs.  We want to play champs we like, champs we know how to play/build well, champs that are fun, champs that make us feel like we've reinvented the wheel with some secret build/masteries/tactic we've come up with, etc etc.  Champs that are good, not great.  Champs that have weaknesses, champs that are amazing in/against certain comps and possibly horrible with/against others.  We want to believe that our pet champions are better than they really are and that our friends chose shitty niche picks that caused us to lose the game before it started.

You guys can go around and around all you want, but that's not changed in all the years I've been playing with y'all so... good luck?

Oh wait, except for Bryff.  He plays the Queen Of Top Lane and plays her very very well.  He's now the only one who should be allowed to be frustrated with the rest of our champ selection.

Hmmm, not sure if i agree with you there.

What you're doing is saying "if you enjoy a champion enough to play 100 games with them, it doesn't matter if they are B or A- tier if you go play them in ranked". i agree with that sentiment. However, there's a few things you're neglecting:

1. Besides the GP discussion, we've been talking about "learning" new champions (more specifically: pacov learning champs). You can no longer appeal to having 100+ games of experience. If there is a B-tier champ and an S-tier champ that does the exact same thing (but better... like say Quinn/Ez versus Lucian), and you want to maximize your success, you should just learn Lucian and not waste your time with Quinn (and if you do decide to fuck around with Quinn, that you realize you'll lose some games because of it).

2. You're talking from the soloqueue perspective. If pacov wants to become a jungle Rengar main and climb to Diamond with him, that's his choice and all the more power to him. More likely, he is just going to play it with us. Until he achieves proficiency, we, as a group, have to deal with some of the weaknesses that Rengar has because whoever is learning the champ is going to be making more errors than normal, or misunderstand timings.

It's important to talk about weaknesses of particular champs (such as GP or Rengar), especially if we plan on bringing those choices into Ranked 5s. Pacov mentioned on his stream that he was actually considering playing jungle Rengar in one of those tournaments that Dan talked about.

I think you are seeing contention where there is none (at least not from me anyway).  You can really simply things a lot in the following way:  let's all have fun or let's all be serious (or maybe 1 guy is trying someone out - perhaps I don't need to try out some thing this game).  If someone makes a direct request for folks to be serious and go try hard, then picking a strong champ is certainly appreciated and really helpful (and certainly kind).  It would be appreciated to go with something strong. 

And you can apply that concept to my whole rant about GP.  I think GP is a weak champ.  If I ask you to pick something strong to help us get a win, it's fairly clear (NOW at least) that I don't think GP is a good pick.  Expanding that logic to say I think all champs are smeh except AB or C is going too far. 

I'm fine with trying out w/e (rango is a great example of me trying out something recently).  It can get tedious when multiple people are trying out whatever comp they feel like (think some MC games) and you are the guy that's still trying hard while everyone else is simply trying out w/e or doing w/e they want.  All that's needed is some balance w/ regards to that. 

So, try out your gp support stuff and have fun.  Take a shot at urgot support.  Just don't be "that guy" that every game is trying out stuff and we all have to wait and see what shite is coming next.  And good news - you aren't that guy and no one we regularly play with is. 

back to the whole rengo thing - I played him over 2 nights as jungler.  Night 1 felt super successful.  Night 2 felt super painful.  I was able to see the pros and cons and summed that up - don't think its super viable - except in certain comps. 

Ah, well that's a horse of a different color.  I keep forgetting that you guys are playing Ranked 5's more often, I was thinking more along the lines of our normal games.

But... I mean, when's the last time any one of us changed someone else's mind about a champ's strength?  I remember back when Karl tried to explain a long time ago about how Jayce was so great and should be played every game top lane if possible.  And I told him that he was a win lane lose game type of champ who was hard to fit on a team.

Karl just had to learn the hard way when failing at Ranked games with a good KDA over and over before he finally admitted "Thunder, you were right all along!  And totally not fat at all!"

Karl is right that everyone goes off their "internal tier lists" way too vehemently and its hilarious how perceived strength is so different from actual strength of champions in this game, and not just in the Smurf games I've been playing in.  Thank god I've finally gotten out of the "Ban Amumu!!!" MMR...

However, if someone has had a frustrating night with people trolling (I've played many a game with MadCasters, I can relate very well to this feeling.) I am all for them letting me know that I not only should play a champ that I feel good about, but one that they approve of as well.  But they better not be playing with a champ that the rest of us don't feel is strong (but they for whatever reason think is solid) when calling in Tryhard Mode.  Fair enough?

As far as Play Something Strong Cause I'm Doing Something Weird Mode... I don't know.  If Cow tells me that he's got this awesome AP Gangplank build he wants to try, I think I'm already being a good sport playing in the game as is.   Not sure how much I want him telling me what I should pick that game, y'know?

Haven't thoroughly read through your guys' comments however...

From my experience Rengar is banned in at least half of my ranked games.  

Feral Flare + Hydra + Youmuus and then tanky items is sufficient enough to take anyone but a tank out with ease.

Of course Rengar similar to some champions such as WW jungle etc have an issue with ganks pre-6, but it isn't the worst since you still have bushes and can use your empowered E to snare.

But yeah, I feel as though Rengar is often banned because of what he can do late game, easily kill a carry or pick someone off the enemy team. And because the deathtimers exceed 30-40 seconds you can take a lot of objectives or shove a lane since it's a 4v5.

Was just brushing past most of the text and I feel as though people have concerns in regards to HAVING a Rengar on their team yeah? If you can play Rengar well there's no issue with having him on your team. Rengars can single handedly turn a game around which is why I ban him often in ranked games. 

Oh and in addition, you can use your empowered E on rengar right before you leap, but you must use your E then right click in quick succession or it'll pop you out of stealth and you can't leap iirc. It's a lot more efficient than leaping and then using your E since there's a high chance of you maybe missing or the enemy reacting with a flash etc.

On the other hand it could be detrimental to your team if you don't pick somebody off after using your ulti. if you're building glasscannon.

Usual build is Hydra Youmuus Last Whisper Black Cleaver Randuins and Mobos.

But you can forgo the Black Cleaver / Last Whispers / Youmuus and opt for more tanky items of course.

And if you're jungle, because of p reference, opt out one of the 3 damage items with a SotEL or FF.

dan - well, the rango build in specific I was trying out was literally monster tank with ff as only offensive item.  And all games on team builder where at least I have been getting a very unique mixing of skill levels.  I'm primarily addressing the specific build/playstyle - specifically Diamondprox's build - example:  http://www.probuilds.net/guide/EUW/1548974906/20234739

The primarily failing for me in solo queue with that build is with having less burst, but enabling me to initiate and serve less of a straight up assassin role and more of a tank initiator as needed.  I actually play the build reasonably well, but its has its shortcomings based on what's happening in game and its really difficult to say if the style will work consistently (like 50/50 of 40/60). 

i think that Rengar top is where a lot of the bans are coming from #RyanChoi

I ban Rengar in fear of Jungle, and like 90% of the ones I see Jungle instead of Top.

Most of what I see is glass cannon jungle rengar. Its scary if it gets going and a complete joke if it doesn't in my experience. Very similar to shaco and yi. 

I think the tank build is probably more consistent but the glass cannon build is a much more fun way to stomp people. 

gave the dmg hybrid a try.  same ff low to no gank weakness in place (eg pressure for enemy jungler when I put out zero). 

The dmg build is delightful IF the game goes to late game.  I chose to gank for the wrong lane when my 1st ult was up (guy watched me gank and did nothing).  Bit of a setback.  Enemy team also had good drag control.

ADC was made a complete nonfactor though on enemy team.  strong for what it is..  game 2 now

Most of the big 3 aren't even that good of solo queue junglers.  Elise is actually extremely mediocre.  She isn't terrible or anything, but very blah is solo queue.  If you look at her stats, very low winrate, low playrate, low banrate, which is not a good sign.  Eve is a bit better, but nothing that strong in solo queue.  I mean, she is really good in laning phase, but solo queue teams don't do so well at fitting her in team comps, so she isn't that great over all.  Lee is very good if you know how to play him of course.

Really, jungle is pretty balanced other than maybe Lee right now (which is why Riot's recent posts about why they can't nerf posts are stupid).  There is a whole tier of junglers who are all pretty much equally competent.  Just pick any of a number of reasonably powerful junglers as long as they can be build as a bruiser and can initiate at least somewhat, and you will be fine if you get good at them.  I mean, is it really going to be a big deal if you get good at Vi or Wukong instead of Elise even though Vi/Wukong isn't an LCS "big 3" jungler?  Of course not.  The details of which junglers you end up picking don't matter as long as its reasonable.

People think that champions are better than they are in solo queue because of the LCS meta quite a bit I think.