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Kalista Changes to make her viable (theory)

DuskStarThresh·2/8/2020, 12:01:29 AM·0 votes·1,536 views

With Kalista being one of the 3-4 "traditional" ADCS with the lowest pick-rate, i wanted to maybe throw out a potential resolution or at least a board to work out a fix for her.

I'm sure she is a tough champion to balance with her potential in pro play being so much stronger than her potential in solo queue, but she is a very enjoyable character that has been long forgotten after she dominated the ADC role in previous season. She received some heavy nerfs that made her unplayable in solo queue and a bottom tier pick for pro play. I think with the additions to the new champions since her release, there is an opportunity to remove some of the restrains her kit has that was put in the prevent her from being so much stronger than every other ADC.

After looking at her abilities and everything, i stumbled across some very crippling aspects of her passives. As most people that play Kalista know, slows are a lot more effective on her than any other champion besides Yasuo which puts her at a very huge disadvantage in current day League of Legends. A lot of champions have been added since Kalista's release and just as many items have been rotated in and out during that time. With the current state of ADC, you find a plethora of ADCs that build Stormrazor and just as many Mid/Support champs that build DuskBlade, both of which have a passive that will slow an intense amount on an auto attack. This is only one issue that prevents Kalista from being a playable champion.

The next issue I want to point out is her passive. This is a very looked over issue that even i've disregarded until looking deeper into this champion. As everyone knows her signature thing is hopping when she autos (which are unable to be canceled after channeled), but the biggest issue with this passive is much less known! There are 3 things mentioned in the passive when you hover it : Autos cannot be canceled, Autos miss if she loses vision on her target, and her autos only deal 90% of her AD! These last two points are HUGE issues that hold her back and makes her unplayable vs any other champions you'll play against in the bot lane. The autos missing when you lose vision is the lesser of the two issues but her lacking 10% of her actual AD on autos is a big deal when she only builds low AD items and attack speed items! Any Kalista play knows the standard core build is Blade of the Ruin King (40AD/25%attackspeed/12%lifesteal) and Runaan's Hurricane (40%attackspeed/25%critchance/7%movementspeed). Looking at her core items it's no wonder she feels so much weaker to everyone else! Other champions core items give 50-80AD on their first item and allow for their second item to also give AD with stormrazor giving attack speed.

All in all I think just revealing Kalista of these negative aspects of her passive would be enough to make her feel more playable without making her overpowered since her core build will probably stay the same. I understand the initial cure for this was giving her the highest base AD out of the Marksman champions but with champions like Aphelios who just gets flat AD for leveling up or champions like Miss Fortune who do more damage on autos to make up for the difference in base AD stats, Kalista is the one that has suffered the most. I would love to hear from everyone else and their thoughts on trying to make Kalista a playable champion again!

8 Comments

Shurimoo2/9/2020, 7:53:26 AM2 votes

Literally all they needed to do to make her viable was give her back her auto range so she can actually exist but instead they gave her armor and base AD so she can win those all-ins, forcing her into that playstyle rather than the much more interesting and difficult playstyle of harassing off minion rends (which they also nerfed by changing her e mana cost, which I was ok with, since she was like tristana where her only mana cost was all-inning you; not very interactive).

She has .9 AD for a reason: her damage comes, in relatively large part, from rend. She actually has something like a 1.35 AD ratio because of rend AD ratio; She builds attack speed because rend doesn't crit (for the love of god do not make rend crit) and she wants more hops and more spears. They lowered her auto range by 25 and that means she can no longer harass without hopping towards her opponent (or her opponent mispositioning) it also means that positioning around an enemy using dashes to kite in a teamfight or otherwise is much harder because if people get probably 25-50 u closer to you theyre within most ability ranges meaning you need to keep then on the very edge of your auto range while also ensuring they don't get out of said auto range or you screw up your DPS/kiting for the next second/half second. While this is sort of good, because it raises her skill expression, it's largely bad because it resulted in the recent buff to her base AD and armor, so that she can simply KILL the opposing bot-lane in the all-in rather than actually play around her rend stacks and harassing and then all-inning once she has harass damage down. So much less fun to fight, so much less fun to play. Not sure what the problem with having high skill-cap champs in LCS is, anyway. (Not to say she wasn't too strong; she definitely was, but both her and azir are far more fun to watch than anything meta right now; point being they didn't have to remove them from the game for 3? years to make them non-dominant).

Oh yeah and the autos missing, while periodically annoying, is something the enemy can play around and you yourself can play around via wards (though with the stealth rework, not against everyone which is fine).

-Kalista player for a while a couple seasons ago; and support main to a kalista main friend prior to that

Posui Gart2/8/2020, 12:30:42 AM1 votes

Kalista is where she is for reasons. Blindly buffing her could make her a problem. She is good against melees but bad in short burst trades, long ranged ADCs and assassins. Giving her more "botlane power" will turn her in a "must counterpick" champion. If you want to buff her, her lategame kiting power should be nerfed first. Her passive has lower damage to make her E stacking more important, instead of using it just for slow Autos can't be cancelled apparently because that would break her passive If you complain about her items not giving much AD, you are free to try IE first on her. People are building on-hit AS items because AS gives her mobility. Slows don't do anything against her passive jumps, unless they also slow AS and neither of those items you listed does it

DuskStarThresh2/8/2020, 3:16:25 AM1 votes

I understand your point but they're outdated with the champions/items that have been out since her last nerf. Riot already understands that she is currently too weak and the point of this post was to present a potential buff that wouldnt be overpowering her as a whole. These would be subtle changes that make her feel like shes actually a potential pick in the first place. Also slows do effect her hopping speed which in turns effects her attack speed.

Obviously these wouldn't be blind buffs, they would be ran through PBE and test before actually hitting the main server. This is all meant to brain storm something to see if the 1.8% play rate adc (4th worst in her role for traditional marksman) can have some sort of redeeming buff in the near future.

vgamedude2/8/2020, 7:18:31 AM1 votes

She already is viable and doing better than many other champs. If adc players want only a small pool of champions being the only thing available in their role (marksmen) then you have to expect that of the 18 or so champions not all 18 are going to have high pickrates.