I'm a bit concerned about the IDEA behind Kalista

Withthegoodrice·Nov 24, 2014·62 votes·6,349 views

Not necessarily a QQ thread, but just a question about the idea of her design.

For instance, Lucian is a short ranged ADC with high damage within his range. His spells focus on speeding him up, or making him mobile to dodge enemies. As such, he doesn't have CC.

ADCs with high CC, such as Varus and Ashe, remain immobile but rely on using their CC to kite and help their team.

Yet other ADCs don't have much hard CC or mobility, but really high range and damage like Kogmaw.

Why does Kalista have innate kiting with mobility, while having a slow, while having mixed % HP DMG, while having an ult which applies hard CC, along with the utility of her sentiles. Whats her kit supposed to represent, or fall off with? She seems to excel in everything.

82 Comments

aperson1Nov 24, 201437 votes

Morello must have either got fired or lied to us, because this is the exact same thing that happened to toplane for ~2 years, that he said wouldn't happen again. They are releasing champs with more and more overloaded kits into the ADC role, to compete with the last released champ who had an overloaded kit. I guess if we coin the phrase "Better Nerf Kalista" they'll get around to fixing it sometime late 2016.

General KeithNov 24, 20143 votes

my new catchphrase, better nerf kalista

AnonagonNov 24, 201422 votes

My main gripe with the ideas behind her is with the Oathsworn thing. If we had seen her much earlier in development, I would have told Riot to cut it and leave it, for a multitude of reasons:

lack of synergy with character (a spirit of vengeance shouldn't be trusting anyone. I get the entire "it costs your soul to take vengeance" thing that it says in her lore, but that isn't partnership like Oathsworn is supposed to be)
increased punishment for AFKs - self explanatory. If a support goes AFK, what happens to Kalista? What if Kalista goes AFK, and you picked Alistar for nothing?
increased punishment for matchmaking randomness. Kalista will be near useless in Bronze and Silver because of bad teammates.
if you look at the rest of her kit, it seems like she's been designed so that if she has a uncooperative or AFK support, she will still be useful, which simply means that she is broken when she does have her support. Despite Oathsworn being something that you would really expect to define a kit, it really doesn't play that huge a part. She has another identity as a kiting master (which tramples on Ezreal). Really, Oathsworn plays just a big enough role in Kalista's kit that you wonder why she has it but isn't defined by it.
Kalista entrenches the duo ADC/Support bot metagame far more than any other thing Riot has done. You could point at Leona, but she does well with any damage oriented lane partner, and she also makes a good jungler. Her teamwork based passive isn't limited to a single person. But with Kalista, Riot is saying that they like the ADC/Support bot meta, and they don't want to do anything to change that.

LeeDarkNov 24, 20142 votes

if you look at the rest of her kit, it seems like she's been designed so that if she has a uncooperative or AFK support, she will still be useful, which simply means that she is broken when she does have her support. Despite Oathsworn being something that you would really expect to define a kit, it really doesn't play that huge a part. She has another identity as a kiting master (which tramples on Ezreal). Really, Oathsworn plays just a big enough role in Kalista's kit that you wonder why she has it but isn't defined by it.

This is the most interesting thing I see. What if the Oathsworn thing were tied to more of her abilities, making her just barely passable as a champ without her partner being within a certain range? That way, Kalista can never get solo experience without making herself extremely vulnerable to ganks, and her support has to be careful about when they go off to ward somewhere deep. They either have to sacrifice utility for really strong teamplay together, or sacrifice that teamplay to gain the utility.

For example, her passive hop could be shorter without her Oathsworn nearby, the slow on spear rip less slowing. There are any number of things you could do there, and it would satisfy the conditions of having clear counterplay opportunities.

AbodyHUN666Nov 24, 20141 votes

You know that hop isn't much longer than the distance you would walk by orbwalking with the downside of snaring yourself for half a second.

LeeDarkNov 24, 20149 votes

I'm sorry, but that is flatly untrue.

serpensortia1Nov 24, 20141 votes

Maybe shorten the normal hop, and make it longer when hopping toward the Oathsworn instead of when hopping away from enemies. For Rend, maybe make Oathsworn attacks and abilities stack a slow while Kalista stacks the damage. Maybe slow 10% per stack up to 60%, and gain a slow stack each time Oathsworn damages enemy (once per dot tho).

CG SereNNov 24, 20141 votes

Or why not some kind of binary play?

Her dash is longer when her oathsworn is not nearby, and/or some other buff.

Basically, have her play style change (think Gnar) based on weather her oathsworn is nearby or not?

MEMEME670Nov 24, 20141 votes

Except, many Rioters highly prefer soulbonding with their Jungler than their Support, so they aren't forcing us into anything.

JevelFaithfulNov 24, 20141 votes

Except, many Rioters highly prefer soulbonding with their Jungler than their Support, so they aren't forcing us into anything.

In a sense.. that means she can hold her own for a good part of the game (the farming/harassing of laning) by just herself. The teamplay is just icing on the cake. I sincerely hope they keep her that way. Because Always needing to bind with the support is... always the same.

Grand ElevenNov 24, 201410 votes

My main gripe with the ideas behind her is with the Oathsworn thing. If we had seen her much earlier in development, I would have told Riot to cut it and leave it, for a multitude of reasons:

lack of synergy with character (a spirit of vengeance shouldn't be trusting anyone. I get the entire "it costs your soul to take vengeance" thing that it says in her lore, but that isn't partnership like Oathsworn is supposed to be)

increased punishment for AFKs - self explanatory. If a support goes AFK, what happens to Kalista? What if Kalista goes AFK, and you picked Alistar for nothing?

increased punishment for matchmaking randomness. Kalista will be near useless in Bronze and Silver because of bad teammates.

if you look at the rest of her kit, it seems like she's been designed so that if she has a uncooperative or AFK support, she will still be useful, which simply means that she is broken when she does have her support. Despite Oathsworn being something that you would really expect to define a kit, it really doesn't play that huge a part. She has another identity as a kiting master (which tramples on Ezreal). Really, Oathsworn plays just a big enough role in Kalista's kit that you wonder why she has it but isn't defined by it.

Kalista entrenches the duo ADC/Support bot metagame far more than any other thing Riot has done. You could point at Leona, but she does well with any damage oriented lane partner, and she also makes a good jungler. Her teamwork based passive isn't limited to a single person. But with Kalista, Riot is saying that they like the ADC/Support bot meta, and they don't want to do anything to change that.

I look no farther than Syndra. They flat out said being able to pick up and toss you allies had too much chance of being toxic. Fast forward to Kalista.

KeevalroyNov 24, 20149 votes

I look no farther than Syndra. They flat out said being able to pick up and toss you allies had too much chance of being toxic. Fast forward to Kalista.

That's okay for Kalista because she has definite weaknesses somewhere in some way, blah blah, yadda yadda summoner 13 . - Rito Gaems Belence Depurtmunt.

JevelFaithfulNov 24, 20144 votes

I look no farther than Syndra. They flat out said being able to pick up and toss you allies had too much chance of being toxic. Fast forward to Kalista.

IN their defense, it's an ultimate. Not hte first time that they break their own rules when it's on a 100sec cooldown with time/range/other limitation. Karthus has (less so nowaday) unavoidable damage with infinite range.. with a 3 sec warning and on one of the longest cooldown in the game. Twisted fate can appear right behind you at anytime... on a pretty long cooldown and with a range limitation. When you look at it : thresh can pull you (with your consent). Kalista can pull you freely (on a 100 sec cooldown, and only for 1 person, with a signal before hand, and she's MADE to be a team-work character. ). The phoenix can block you with her wall... but it's just a wall.

When you look at it, the only 2 character that can really move you are 2 of the "officially teamworking" character, and both have limitation on it. Still not like dota where at least as many champions have thatas part of their basic kit.

The5lackerNov 26, 20141 votes

And in addition to all of the other problems, it's just so sloppily thrown together. I mean, unique items are already a bad idea, but the support has to actively be paying attention to deny being stapled if they don't want to be?

HayaishiNov 24, 201420 votes

That is exactly my concern. Despite she not being overpowered at the moment it just feels shitty how Riot releases champions that are no longer bound to their design values (If they ever had one) while previous released champions do.

Anyone remember Meddler saying "Oh, i think the problem with mobility creep is that we make mobile champions without making them have a fair trade off to balance said mobility" Then Kalista is released.

TalamareNov 24, 201415 votes

Because she is designed by CertainlyT, who feels the need to not only include everything but also include OP things

killd0zerNov 24, 201410 votes

CertainlyT champs are literally the definition of anti-fun.

He makes SINGLE player experiences, and really fun champions... to play AS.

I firmly believe that most designers could make the same champs that he does, but they put restrictions on themselves.

But a lot of the power creep is just Riot in general. Vel Koz had limitations, but his mana costs were hilariously low. Jinx is another example of a themeless champion who just kind of has abilities that somewhat work together. Gnar is just hilarious.

The Epicer ONeNov 24, 20141 votes

the problem isnt with CertainlyT's champs, its with most past champs being lackluster. CertainlyT's champs are great. the other guy's ones aren't so great.

Don LongoNov 24, 201410 votes

Yes, the old champions are lackluster, but they still exist. Its part of CertainlyT's job as a designer to make sure his designs fit in to the game he's putting them in. Yes, he may be able to design very interesting champions with a lot of unique mechanics, but if they break the game because they are too different from the old champions, then you would have to consider it a failure on his part.

The only reason I can see them allowing him to put out champions the way he does is that they plan to revamp and update all the old ones at some point, so technically it will become okay for Kalista to exist in the future.

serpensortia1Nov 24, 20143 votes

If all the old champs get a kit update like the new Sion, then yes I think Kalista could be ok. Not saying Sion is in a good spot, because he's too inconsistent and gives the opponent a lot of power, but he now has a kit that can exist with newer champs instead of feeling old.

Looking at Ashe though, she has an uninteresting passive, just an occasional free crit. Her Q is part of her identity, but it doesn't match up with newer skills. Compared to Kalista, Ashe just has a lot less in her kit. Also, a lot of older champions don't have flashy moves outside ult.

Grand ElevenNov 24, 20145 votes

CertainlyT champs are literally the definition of anti-fun.

He makes SINGLE player experiences, and really fun champions... to play AS.

I firmly believe that most designers could make the same champs that he does, but they put restrictions on themselves.

But a lot of the power creep is just Riot in general. Vel Koz had limitations, but his mana costs were hilariously low. Jinx is another example of a themeless champion who just kind of has abilities that somewhat work together. Gnar is just hilarious.

You lost me at "jinx is themeless". I don't think that word means what you think it means (insert best Inigo Montoya accent here).

Yes Jinx has an insanely overloaded kit ... but themeless? She has one of the best/clearest themes in the game champion wise.

killd0zerNov 24, 20147 votes

I meant as in the mechanics of her kit, not necessarily the character.

Ashe is the FROST archer. She plays like a frost archer. She is fragile, but has abilities to slow and impede her enemies. She trades dmg for utility. Cait is the sniper with long range and safety. She trades raw dps for safety. Graves is the gritty ADC with a shotgun. He does better close range than other ADC's. He trades range for tankiness and dmg. Kog is the squishiest but he also does the most DPS. He trades safety and defenses for range and dmg. Lucian is pretty op, so he's a hard comparison, but he has mobility and dmg, in exchange for no cc and below average range.

There is far more trade offs than that such as wave clear, and poking that some ADC's get some here or there. Quinn was designed to have a strong all in, but a much weaker poke for example.

Jinx is le explosion XD so randumb. She has a bunch of abilities that have some synergy, but really just kind of exist on their own. There isn't really anything wrong with this, but everything but her Q is really generic. I guess you could say here theme is explosions, but not really, nor does her kit really reflect an explosions enthusiast like say Ziggs.

She has nukes, and cc, and range, and dmg. She has wave clear and tower pushing. She can poke and she can all in. While she has no dash, other ADC's who also give up a direct escape move get far less benefit. She doesn't really have a clear style like some of the other champions do. She just casually has AoE crits for some reason, and an execute ult that would be strong on anybody. None of her abilities really feel special or unique to her. Her Q is her most defining trait, but it's not really kit defining.

DirewolfiezNov 24, 201411 votes

Short answer: because CertainlyT and his buddies in balance. I swear, it's like every new champ they release wasn't tested at all. Riot talks about doing something about the mobility creep, and then they release Kalista. I mean, that's just like a huge middle finger.

The Storm DragonNov 24, 201411 votes

Short answer: because CertainlyT and his buddies in balance. I swear, it's like every new champ they release wasn't tested at all. Riot talks about doing something about the mobility creep, and then they release Kalista. I mean, that's just like a huge middle finger.

CertainlyT doesn't do balance, he's a champion designer. Live balance are the ones that put numbers to a kit, designers just come up with the mechanics behind them.

manbearswineNov 24, 20146 votes

Short answer: because CertainlyT and his buddies in balance. I swear, it's like every new champ they release wasn't tested at all. Riot talks about doing something about the mobility creep, and then they release Kalista. I mean, that's just like a huge middle finger.

CertainlyT doesn't do balance, he's a champion designer. Live balance are the ones that put numbers to a kit, designers just come up with the mechanics behind them.

except that he in fact IS into balance,and you can't just release champions with disregard for balancing just to expect balance team to do "their magic",not all champions are healthy,ask poppy.

proof:guess who's behind the 3.13 zyra nerfs.

KorushoNov 24, 20141 votes

Short answer: because CertainlyT and his buddies in balance. I swear, it's like every new champ they release wasn't tested at all. Riot talks about doing something about the mobility creep, and then they release Kalista. I mean, that's just like a huge middle finger.

CertainlyT doesn't do balance, he's a champion designer. Live balance are the ones that put numbers to a kit, designers just come up with the mechanics behind them.

Psst, its the mechanics that are the problem.

TheI3igDaddyNov 24, 20148 votes

Because Riot doesn't care that their game is being power and mobility-creeped to hell. They seriously do not care because of E-sports.

Otherwise CertainlyT would've been fired by now.

LupusNoxNov 24, 20147 votes

she represent mobility creep

Kalista the spear of power creep

AnzellNov 24, 20147 votes

This is by far the most unbalanced patch I've had the displeasure of playing in years.

serpensortia1Nov 24, 20142 votes

This is the first patch of preseason, they have a lot of work to do before the changes are balanced properly.

disregardableNov 24, 20146 votes

She has no burst. She's designed to be an auto-attack reliant champion, and her auto-attacks are very hard to use as a result of her passive. So even though she's very mobile, she really has to be because it takes her a long time to try to kill someone without being killed first. This also puts close matches in a difficult situation; how long can she afford to keep getting those spears in him? If she mis-judges and realizes she can't kill him, she'd just die without the mobility. Ashe is in a similar situation, except her crits give her significantly higher damage over time.

I agree, the slow AND the passive is a bit unnecessary with her kiting though.

KingsgraveNov 24, 20143 votes

She has no burst. She's designed to be an auto-attack reliant champion, and her auto-attacks are very hard to use as a result of her passive. So even though she's very mobile, she really has to be because it takes her a long time to try to kill someone without being killed first. This also puts close matches in a difficult situation; how long can she afford to keep getting those spears in him? If she mis-judges and realizes she can't kill him, she'd just die without the mobility. Ashe is in a similar situation, except her crits give her significantly higher damage over time.

I agree, the slow AND the passive is a bit unnecessary with her kiting though.

I just wish her Q wasn't an overly useful low CD high damage skillshot with long range

disregardableNov 24, 20145 votes

I was going to disagree with this, but then I realized it beats Varus's Q in every sense except its AD scaling. Lower CD, lower mana cost, higher range, higher flat AD, and faster speed...that shit needs nerfed. I wonder why no one uses it.

DeliothNov 24, 20141 votes

Except her Q only hits one thing unless it kills something- can't use it to clear full waves or consistently poke through a minion wave.

The SoulforgedNov 25, 20141 votes

I was going to disagree with this, but then I realized it beats Varus's Q in every sense except its AD scaling. Lower CD, lower mana cost, higher range, higher flat AD, and faster speed...that shit needs nerfed. I wonder why no one uses it.

Varus needs some love :*(

TalamareNov 24, 20145 votes

She has no burst. She's designed to be an auto-attack reliant champion, and her auto-attacks are very hard to use as a result of her passive. So even though she's very mobile, she really has to be because it takes her a long time to try to kill someone without being killed first. This also puts close matches in a difficult situation; how long can she afford to keep getting those spears in him? If she mis-judges and realizes she can't kill him, she'd just die without the mobility. Ashe is in a similar situation, except her crits give her significantly higher damage over time.

I agree, the slow AND the passive is a bit unnecessary with her kiting though.

Oh she has burst 20% max hp damage, Q and E

SerBlaiseNov 24, 20143 votes

you do realize that the HP% damage only happens if the support attacks with in 1.5 seconds of her autoing right? In lane phase, I admit this is big. But in team fights your support could be all over the place (including inside you). and you can only proc it once, basically. E is her main burst tool for finishing a target off.

TalamareNov 24, 20144 votes

you do realize that the HP% damage only happens if the support attacks with in 1.5 seconds of her autoing right? In lane phase, I admit this is big. But in team fights your support could be all over the place (including inside you). and you can only proc it once, basically. E is her main burst tool for finishing a target off.

During laning this is easy to achieve During team fights this is easy to achieve if your soulbound knows how to focus targets or peel

Its basically ONLY difficult to achieve if you're maybe in soloQ

redlightmanNov 24, 20145 votes

I just want to make sure that the people talking about mobility creep realize that Cassiopeia was released during a time where AoE dominated everything.

GundayMondayNov 24, 20145 votes

I always thought Kalista's power came as a tradeoff to playing the Comcast gambit. If your oath sworn DCs, you don't have an ult :3

serpensortia1Nov 24, 20144 votes

Really shouldn't balance around Riot's poor servers.

GundayMondayNov 24, 20142 votes

Yeah, I should have added a #Kappa

xl Kirito lxNov 24, 20143 votes

She has insane kiting, I'll give you that. Her slow is tied to her damage. If she uses it at the start of a fight, then her overall damage for the fight drops significantly until rend is off cd. Her % HP of magic damage is tied to one other member on your team, can only proc once every eight seconds, and thats assuming you are both able to attack the same person. Kalistas ult does provided cc, but it's another all or nothing ultimate. You throw someone at their team, you are forced to engage there, you can't exactly run away from a fight. Again, it's nice, but it's not like getting a 5 man yasou ult, or alistar q. Sentries are nice, aside from the long cd's, the easy ability to avoid them, and the fact that people consider sentries to be a free ward.

People want to make Kalista out to be an incredibly overpowered champion with nonstop mobility. She does have the nonstop mobility part, but she's not overpowered. There are ways to play against her, she still dies to any targeted cc, or assassin. I understand you aren't trying to make this thread into "OMG Kalista OP rito nerf.", but she has specific counter play to her.

I Main SwainNov 24, 20142 votes

I feel like she should be the shortest ranged adc to compensate for her passive, and her %hp dmg when she and an ally attack the same unit is just a lot retarded. I mean, really? 20% at rank 5?

DaCushNov 24, 20142 votes

Her early game is terrible, she has to rely on her teammate to do the hard cc that does 0 damage. This is exactly how people looked at Gnar when he got released. OMG overloaded kit, has slows on everything and got released being extremely underpowered and nobody played him and you were a troll if you did since his ult was so unreliable. It wasn't till he got buffed that he became viable.

commi666Nov 25, 20141 votes

Dont forget to go leagueofgraphs, scroll allllll the way down to the bottom in the champions section and find Kalista sitting there at 43% winrate. Keep complaining about her being OP

Drewbie0Nov 25, 20142 votes

She was just released so it is obviously going to be low...

eyes wide shutNov 25, 20141 votes

I find it rather humorous that all the pros think kalista sucks, her win rating sucks, and yet all you kids in silver and bronze can NOT stop bitching like she's the most OP thing you've ever seen. Her early game damage sucks, her 1v1 is absolute GARBAGE compared to every other single adc.

And to that one guy who said this is the most unbalanced patch he's played in years? Someone must not have been around for The Patch of Black Cleavers, or the original Blade of The Ruined King, or hell, Ap Yi/Ap Trynd. Or when AP mid annie didn't have many counters and flash tibbers was the root of all evil. Or, Liandry's Mushroom Teemo Minefields, Rengar infinite heal, Rengar instant kills, Olaf the giants belt king... I could go on forever.

Takes me back to that time when Lucian was released and everyone said he sucked ass. Flashforward to many nerfs later and kids still cry OP about him. So many blind people. Everyone must be LeeSin

KromNov 25, 20142 votes

I find it rather humorous that all the pros think kalista sucks, her win rating sucks, and yet all you kids in silver and bronze can NOT stop bitching like she's the most OP thing you've ever seen.

Its funny you go on to talk about how long you've been playing. You obviously don't remember when every high ELO player said Mord was Hue Hue BR Troll Bait and the "trash" players needed to stop complaining... then suddenly he blew up, without any buffs, and dominated so hard he was perma banned and got several nerfs.

The main difference is the "trash" players are more willing to try new things, which is why they've always ID'd the broken champs first more often than the "pros". Just sayin' as someone whose been here since early Closed Beta.

Anyway, a ranged carry that can infinitely kite Melee champs that are moving at 500-600 MS (and i'm not talking Bear Stance speed bursts, Singed ult + Ghost, or max Bloodlust on WW will still get kited with ease) certainly ought to be looked at. Especially when there is almost no Point and Click stun left in the game to keep it in check. Also she can still use her ult when she's stunned/suppressed, neat huh?

The5lackerNov 26, 20141 votes

"B-but she doesn't have a steroid!"

No, just an infinite stacking execute with functionally no cooldown that can be moved to another target with her low-cooldown harassment spell.