Guide/Build to Rek'Sai by BLC Niko Bellic

What is up fellow summoners. My name is Gabriel Walker or you might know me as BLC Niko Bellic. I bought this champion the minute she was available and have absolutely loved her abilities and playing styles. She can be devastating fighter and split pusher. With the addition of new jungle items and consumables in Season 5, she can be a huge threat. Let's go into the details of her abilities, when to use them and how.


I am going to do things differently in this guide then in previous guides, I will link the article to Rek'Sais stats here and let you review them at your leisure but I will go into which skills to use when, in what order and how to jungle effectively.

Rek'Sai is really strong at being able to clear jungle camps and move around the map. Because of her strength in clearing jungle camps, I find that prioritizing ganking over CS is where it's at with this champ as you can always go back into jungle and clear the camps quickly. My guide is strictly restrained to my playstyle and can be adjusted per yours. So let this be a guiding light to help you branch out and become your own Rek'Sai player.

Summary of Spells:

Let's start with Rek'Sais passive. This bad boy right here will keep you in the jungle even after an unsuccessful gank or having to defend yourself. You can burrow in the ground and gain health back. For junglers, sustain is always a great thing to have as it means more time in the game and less time at nexus waiting for health or buying.

Next is the Q, your damage dealing ability, which will destroy jungle camps and enemy champs alike. When burrowed you can fire a small AP skill shot which does 100% AP damage. So that means, if you have 40 AP, your burrowed Q does 40 magic damage. This sort of is fun for Rek'Sai in that you pretty much have an OP AP move, but in reality, you will do more damage building AD/Tank or Bruiser. When unburrowed her Q does AoE physical damage. This is also why Ravenous Hydra is essential on Rek'Sai. She performs all 3 strikes within seconds of each other, so you can probably see now why and how she clears jungle camps so well. 1 item and you will clear camps all game.

Rek'Sais W is Burrow. She digs into the ground and loses vision but gains movement speed, healing from burrow if she has fury, can see enemy movement even in their fog of war, can tunnel from one spot to another and can pop up a champion. You will spend most of your time burrowed, but will come out from it to burst damage on champs and add a little CC to them. You can either basic attack a target or active W again to perform the pop up. I personally like to activate W for the pop as you can do it earlier then getting close and popping them up with the basic attack. Keep in mind that an enemy can't be popped up again if they just were, so paying attention to who you popped up and when in a team fight is crucial as you can pop up one or two people in the initiation and then pop up the rest as the fight goes on. You can also pop up champs or jungle camps several times if you are fighting for a prolonged period of time. This pop up also gives you about 1 second of time to get in unchallenged damage on your target, meaning you pop them up and get to attack for a second before they either run or return damage. I will explain further on why this is important for jungling early on. The pop does do some physical damage, so it is viable as damage as well as a CC move.

Rek'Sais E is all about the true damage when unburrowed and movement/map control when burrowed. E does physical damage based on the amount of Fury you have built up, when the Fury bar is full, you will do True Damage, which is preferred over physical damage as it bypasses all armor. Keep this in mind during fights, try to refrain from performing the bite unless you either can secure the kill or need to get in as much damage with your ganking partner as possible, other than that, get into the habit of saving it during jungling and in 1v1 fights for that True Damage. When burrowed E will create a point A and point B tunnel that extends about the range of a Sona heal or AoE ability. You will be using tunnels strategically for the most part. There are key areas to place your tunnels that will help provide mobility around the map early on and secure kills, dragons and objectives but it is also ok to use the tunnels to catch up to your target or escape. You get 8 tunnels which is way more than enough, but it gives you tons of movement. I will create a map to show you where you should create your tunnels to be able to be as mobile as possible.

Rek'Sais ultimate is pretty simple but comes with an added passive ability that increases attack speed. As a jungler, you will start with Hunters Machete and upgrade that to Stalkers Blade Devourer, which gives 50% attack speed and slight magic damage for each jungle camp and kill. Really synergizes well with her need for attack speed and her Q when burrowed. Doesn't hurt to have extra damage in the form of AP either when auto attacking. Also the ultimate grants instant movement to any of your tunnels anywhere on the map, pretty freaking OP in my opinion. Makes for great ganks, objective secures and split pushing.

Jungle Strategy:

Start Q first. There is never a reason to grab any other ability first, not even for invading. Hunters Machete and health pots. First buy, you will upgrade your Hunters Machete.

Start with Golems if you are going to gank top and start with Frog if you are going to gank bottom. Smite as soon as they come up, and here is why.. You get a buff from either one. The Golems will give you a stun on jungle camps every 6 basic attacks, combined with Rek'Sais Q and you get that stun pretty often, helps clear jungle quickly early on. The Frog will give you a DoT (Damage over Time) much like having a poison. Either one is ok, but the poison from the Frog is a huge added benefit for when you go to gank.

So you have just started with Golems or Frog, and you smited that sucker as soon as it came out, good job! Now you finish off that camp and you should get level 2 from it. As soon as you get to level 2, level up your W. This will give you the heal, movement speed and CC we need to gank. This next part is mainly up to you as a player and your skill level, ability to read player movement and predict where they are going to go as you are going to gank.

Level 2 ganking! This is the best part of the game in my opinion because no one ever, EVER sees this coming. So let's say you started Frog, you will move immediately from there to bottom, but you will not go through river bush, you will instead watch the fog of war, staying just outside of it from the enemy team bottom and kind of work your way towards their tri bush. But instead of going into the tri bush, you will then head immediately bottom but don't head directly towards the ADC, instead, head in a direction that will cut them off because every time, they enemy ADC and support will either try to CC you, or move into the bottom bushes. If you head in a direction to cut them off, you buy time for your ADC and support to move in and also will definitely get your CC off. You will want to pop the ADC and then immediately Q them, the rest is up to your ADC and support because all you can really do is get that slight CC and some damage in, DO NOT CHASE. You are not mobile yet, simply come in, pop them up, get your Q off but do not chase them to tower unless you are going to secure the kill for sure. Since bottom lane is most likely level 1, you should not worry about too much but absolutely do not chase them back to their tower. You just bought your lane some precious CS and breathing room not to mention that you probably have just caused the enemy team to change strategies to help gank bot as well because they now that their bottom lane just got hurt early on.

After you gank, go back to jungle and either grab Blue or Wolves. Doesn't really matter. Sure, grab blue to keep the enemy from taking it but to be honest, offer it to mid. They can use it more than you. You don't have mana and CDR is not a big deal to Rek'Sai. She does physical damage not spell damage and so your Q is really the only spell you would benefit from having slightly more cool down on. After you grab Blue or Wolves, you will be level 3, level up that E son!

Time to burrow! Ok, this is going to be the part where this guide REALLY opens up to interpretation. You can play the jungle however you like, but being mobile, quick and aggressive in ganking is the way to go. Rek'Sais mobility gives her a lot of opportunities to get in and get out. I will create a map of pathing for my way of Jungling that I hope will help as well as a Jungle map for where the tunnels are most effective.

Max your Q first, then W and of course R when you can. You can build either hyper damage Rek'Sai or Bruiser Rek'Sai. I recommend Bruiser Rek'Sai because you don't have a lot of catch potential and a lot of times, you will be focused down, so being tank helps with that. The core item build is as follows:

Core Items (Basic Build):



Optional Items (Depending on game and champs):