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Kayle: Danger Signs of a Problematic Kit

Shrikesnest·7/2/2014, 2:55:33 AM·3 votes·1,532 views

I say all of this not as a Kayle hater, but as a longtime Kayle fan. She was one of the first champions I got remotely good at, and I've long enjoyed playing her.

The reason I love playing Kayle isn't because of her power. I like the power fantasy she offers. Angels are my favorite mythological creatures, and the retributive angel motif is a lot of fun. I like Kayle's visual design as well. But I have to admit that we're seeing a lot of danger signs that her kit is problematic.

Kayle has been nerfed continuously all throughout the end of season 3 and all of season 4 so far, with only a few small compensatory buffs to parts of her kit that remain weak. The thing is, despite all of those nerfs, you can still point to areas of the game in which Kayle is just utterly dominant, combining mixed damage output with range and the ability to apply all of that damage at an incredible speed. This is all apart from her ultimate, which is its own thorny set of problems.

Combining high utility and high damage is always a sore spot, especially when weaknesses in one area for other champions are justified by the idea that the two should not be mixed. But temporary invulnerability on a short cooldown, speed boosting, and (admittedly anemic) healing, all of which can be applied to any friendly target including Kayle herself, is not overwhelming by itself, but combining all of that with Kayle's damage output is a bit much. The thing is, destroying her damage output by constantly lowering her attack speed and ability power ratios is not a long-term solution to the problem because her utility isn't strong enough on its own to allow her to be a competent support on the level of Thresh or Leona.

As far as Kayle's damage output, she combines physical and magical damage as well as a stacking shred on both resistances, all of which scale with her attack speed and cooldown reduction due to the scaling and passive-stacking on her Q. This is an almost Vayne-level ability to deal solid damage no matter what your opponent builds, which is problematic no matter what the numbers on it are. Basically, you couldn't possibly nerf Kayle's damage enough to make this design non-problematic.

I don't want to preserve Kayle's status as an overpowered all-lane beater who can shred down a tank in seconds and also make herself invulnerable at short intervals. I just want to be able to play an awesome angelic warrior who charges into battle, lifting her allies' spirits and fighting capabilities along the way. Whatever Kayle can look like in the future, it's apparent that it cannot be a version of her current kit with numbers shifted around. Kayle is showing all the signs of a champion in need of massive overhaul.

I don't have any solutions myself; no ideas about what this remake might look like. I am not familiar enough with the mechanics of League of Legends to make calls like that. I have ideas for what sounds like it would feel cool and deliver on the power fantasy, but I'm not nearly knowledgeable enough to know if any of it would be feasible. I just know that the current trajectory on her abilities is unhealthy for her as a champion, and for the game in general. Anybody who needs that many big nerfs in a row and continues to be a dominant force not just as a pubstomper but in ranked and even championship play needs more than a little tweak.

6 Comments

KingSmizzy7/2/2014, 3:21:48 AM1 votes

Removing Kayle's heal replacing it with a cleanse or other utility, and halving the range on her Righteous Fury, in my opinion she could survive like that.

Nero Claudíus7/2/2014, 10:50:29 AM1 votes

You actually bring up a solid point about the idea that she leads her allies into battle. While I think her ultimate is a great ult, I have an issue about how people are playing her full apdps. She has a crazy heal but here's an idea. She heals herself (percentage heal) and her allies in a certain distance around her for half the amount, whilst giving the movement speed. This means her cooldown needs to be improved significantly (since she's almost guaranteed a nashors) I'd say a 10 second cooldown AFTER 40% cdr is applied. Her single target slow no longer has an ad scaling. her e doesn't proc with Runnans.

Why do I like her heal? she can stack hp and heal for a massive amount, or ap and heal for a greater percentage. The thing is that when she stacks hp, she seriously hurts her damage output and when she stacks Ap, the heal wont heal her allies as much. This highly differentiates between support and APC. Now people have been building this runnans bs because it works like Jinx's rockets but I feel like this is just too powerful on Kayle because of her shred. Over all, she becomes much more team oriented.

I do see a couple flaws in my current suggestion but I am thinking off the top of my head atm.

Worgslarg7/2/2014, 12:35:56 PM1 votes

IMO, while I much prefer an ap build, make her e's magic damage scale only from ad, and not ap. have it reduce ad by x% so you do not have a champion with 300+ ad and then e on top of that.

If she wants to deal the aoe splash damage, she needs to build ad. Imo the runans build is fine, it just scales too well with ap/ad.

If her damage was to be shifted to ad scalings, her e would need a lower cooldown at rank 5, not depentant on cdr. Otherewise, she cannot deal damage consistently withought 40% cdr, which does not come easily from ad items.

Sheldons7/3/2014, 8:16:46 AM1 votes

Having high damage and utility is problematic? wow wtf? While we have champions with high utility, high tankiness, and high damage such as thresh, blitzcrank, chogath, volibear, xin zhao... basically every tanky dps.

Why is it bad that shes good at what she does? that she can actually lane against jax is a bad thing? mind you jax is still completely broken as long as tanky dps remains a thing in this game.