Riot gave up on kalista, thoughts from a kalista player

Hello everyone, I've been a kalista player since her release and despite her "current state" I'm still crushing games with her and I believe that she is still incredibly strong and will likely always be unless we make some changes. I have a few ideas on how we could adjust her kit to make her fit better into her archetype as well as make her gameplay feel even more rewarding while giving the enemy team some better windows to punish her.

The biggest issue that i believe devs have had with her is how to find a way to moderate her ability to trade in the lane phase, i believe i have found a solution that will make both the player and the devs happy. Previously we have just tried to make rend cost mana as a way to prevent her from just excessively 1 auto rend trading and winning lane phase for free, this works in some ways but can often leave the kalista player feeling awful as they cannot use rend very much at all even on minions in the early game, so lets get into it. These changes are comprehensive and involve her entire kit, read before you make a final judgement.

• Updated Rend : Reverted : if one target is killed the cooldown of rend is reset and mana is refunded. New : kalista cannot rend stacks on champions unless she has more than 3 stacks on the target

This would allow kalista to have the lane presence that is signature to the champion allowing her to shove and look for harass, this would just come without constant applications of rend as she would likely not be able to rend the enemy champions. However, we are giving her ways to make this easier.

• Updated W Sentinel : W : updated : "our hatred burns cold" when kalista and her oath sworn attack the same target one additional stack of rend is added to the target. no other aspects of W changed

Currently the oathsworn attack just procs the kalista passive for damage and gives nothing else. This change obviously increases the synergy required of both players as well as her strength with ranged supports which has classicly been quite weak. In comparision to supports like This change allows kalista and her support to both auto attack an enemy together bringing their count on the enemy champion to 2.

• Updated Q : Pierce : Range 1100 850 Updated : "we shall pierce their hearts" kalista can always rend stacks of rend granted by pierce

This brings back a bread and butter combination of abilities that i think should remain in her kit. Kalista auto attacks a minion to 1 hp then lands a q on an enemy while casting rend to set up a trade or all in. The range nerf on this ability is to allow better counterplay to the enemy as i often find that canceling martial poise and double dashing towards an enemy with Fates call can feel "unfair" This creates a very generic counterplay option where taking short trades with kalista or avoiding her oathsworn is rewarding and then being able to hit pierce becomes essential to formulating all ins for the kalista player.