[Balance Suggestion] Show the enemy where Kalista is dashing

MrBuffington··31 votes·2,339 views

So I remember a while back, a Red was asked what they considered to be a healthy lane bully; they offered Draven: Yes he'll pretty much outtrade you for much of the game, but he also telegraphs his positioning with where his axes are going to land.

I'm going to be frank; Kalista's mobility inside a fight with Runaan's is pretty ridiculous. Hitting a skillshot (which, Riot seems to be leaning more and more towards with their designs ex: Soraka, Sion, Ryze might be getting skillshots, etc.) is frustrating at best with how much ground Kalista can cover in a short period of time, not to mention how frequently and quickly she can change direction to juke them. So instead of just nerfing or removing her passive (which, realistically, I don't see Riot doing), why not just show where Kalista is going to be dashing to the enemy team? There's a period in Kalista's auto attack animation where if you click a direction, Kalista will dash in that direction when she's finished with her auto attack; my suggestion is that whenever this direction gets 'locked in', this is shown to the enemy.

In addition to adding more counterplay to Kalista, I think it makes her interactions more interesting; does she wait until near the end of her animation to 'lock in' a movement direction and risk not clicking in time to move, or does she 'lock in' a direction earlier to ensure her position, but also give her enemy more time to aim a predictive skillshot? Or does she play a mind game and not click a direction, leading her opponent to wait to fire a skillshot when they're waiting for the direction to appear?

EDIT: To clarify, there are two basic issues that I (and some others) see with Kalista at the moment; she counters and is countered by different classes of champions to an extreme. On one hand, skillshot reliant champions (among others) have a very difficult time vs. Kalista; this proposed change is meant to give these champions more room to interact vs Kalista without directly nerfing Kalista's mobility. (On the other hand, champions with targeted CC hit Kalista especially hard since she is more reliant on her mobility than other ADCs; I think this issue is already being addressed by Riot in their reworks, etc. where many of their designs are moving away from targeted CC, or targeted spells in general. If it is still an issue there is still room to address this later, but I can't make any guesses based on the current state of the game).

35 Comments

Vesarixx8 votes

The problem is that there isn't really much of a window of when they could show you where she was dashing, typically the dash goes off about as soon as the movement input is entered, at least late game, early game this might give a slight indicator but once she does get Ruunans it's pretty much back to the way it is now.

MrBuffington2 votes

That split second can be really important; seeing as though Riot probably won't nerf her mobility (hell they've buffed it since release) I think this is a fair way of adding some more counterplay to her kit.

EDIT: I'm not saying this is an absolute "fix" to Kalista, I'm just saying it could help her lane match ups have a bit more interactivity, rather than just taking targeted hard CC to counter her. It also adds a little more skill into playing Kalista, having to think about how you're using your mobility rather than just spamming it as much as possible because it makes you harder to hit; I think it'll make Kalista more interesting to play also. If you have attack move bound to a spammable key/button, once you get botrk + runaan's, it's pretty braindead how you play her; last time I didn't even care who I was attacking since I was still getting stacks up on everyone and could just E for a reset once the general targets I was hitting got low enough.

Vesarixx2 votes

What might be a better solution is to reduce the amount of attack damage she gets per level as well as her base AD, that way she couldn't go Ruunans as a first item and still expect to win trades, and also reduce the amount of AS per level, making her more item reliant.

MrBuffington1 votes

This thread isn't aimed at directly nerfing Kalista; the goal is to give her more counterplay and interactivity. Whether her numbers are out of whack, I really don't know, that's up to Riot's balance team. I don't really see an issue with Kalista's current build (botrk, runaan's, bt, lw, zerkers, defensive item or ie or something as a last item), since she isn't getting that huge crit multiplier until end game, if at all (and even then it's fairly low percentage)

Narasimha1 votes

I've always questioned the Ruunan rush. Is it really a good idea? Because everytime I face a Kalista who build one, I generally win trades through IE. I think the one time I lost was because she had an Alistar supp (Oh gods the CC for days).

MrBuffington1 votes

I'd rather have botrk or at least some damage/utility (like BFS, pickaxe, or at least double dorans and vamp scepter) before going for Runaan's if I plan on trading or interacting with my lane opponent at all; The runaan's rush reminds me a lot of Tristana's SS rush (I don't think this works anymore with the jungle changes and Tristana update), where the goal was to get tons of waveclear with her E passive and the SS proc, then go farm jungle camps, come back to lane and clear the wave again, just so you don't have to deal with your lane opponent until you get enough gold for some damage.

youngjake932 votes

They actually buffed Kalista iirc so that you can click somewhere else to dash if you do it before the animation starts. So really, the game doesn't know for sure which way Kalista is going to jump until she basically is already jumping. As a player you can already hold the skill shot and then lead it to the place she will land after her dash, which is basically what you are suggesting here.

MrBuffington1 votes

I don't see this in her changelog on the wiki; they gave her the ability to select a different target, but I think the movement thing is still locked in place. Can you show me where they changed this?

EDIT: is changing directions included in changing targets?

Auz the Ripper2 votes

I think the best thing would be to make her dash scale with her current movement speed

That would allow her more itemization options (I.E. Allowing her to drop her boots in favor of zephyr or make BotRK's active benefit her)

But more importantly, it would allow slows to actually affect her in some way Many champions depend on slows to stay in range and Kalista removes any chance of them functioning

MrBuffington1 votes

I think there would need to be some upper cap or something, otherwise Zilean + Lulu comps just make Kalista dash all over the place. I think they wanted to make it scale with boots since it's easier to control. Giving her some way to interact with slows is important though, I think, though not sure how.

Rikari1 votes

This could be a fix but it could open a while new window of jukes,also it can be cancelled with her Q for even more juke-ability. and yeah wat Alghul said.

MrBuffington2 votes

Well would you rather have Kalista have to burn her Q to juke or just juke you regardless since you're not sure where she's going? I don't think this is an end-all 'solution', but I really don't see Riot nerfing her mobility, and this would at least be something

Nin10do00141 votes

The problem I see here isn't balance; it's programming. I'm not sure how the programming of League will take the Kalista player's actions and process it well enough for everyone to see. In Draven's case, the location in which his axes will land was determined by League's programming, but the direction in which Kalista will dash is based on the player's controls.

What makes this even more complicated is when lag is involved. If the server cannot process the Kalista's inputs fast enough, there will not be much point to implementing this.

This is not to say that I oppose your idea. I honestly like this idea, but I just want to express the complications of including this feature.

MrBuffington1 votes

In Draven's case, the location in which his axes will land was determined by League's programming, but the direction in which Kalista will dash is based on the player's controls.

I think this is incorrect. Draven controls where his axes will land based on the direction and speed he's moving after he's thrown it; similarly Kalista indicates the direction she wants to move in by right clicking during her wind up animation; if she right clicks after the projectile leaves her hand, she won't dash, only move in that direction. Plus it's a fixed range dash, where Draven's is much more variable based on the speed he's moving, so to me it seems easier to implement. I'm pretty sure they even had it visible to the Kalista player at some point/with some settings; they just have to make it visible to the other team.

So yes, I agree with a lot of other people in this thread that it doesn't leave a ton of time for the enemy player to react, but I think it will add a little bit to make her a bit more interactive.

GaleWinUnleashed1 votes

Draven's does not vary based on his speed. That was tried once, but was soon reverted because players preferred the ability to move in unpredictable ways on their way to catch an axe.

MrBuffington1 votes

I'm pretty sure the faster you're moving as Draven, the further away your axe is going to land; it's meant to predict where Draven is going to be when the axe lands if he continues at that speed/direction, IIRC

GaleWinUnleashed1 votes

Excerpt from 3.6 patch notes (which I searched for on S@20):

Draven In Patch 3.5, we changed Draven’s Spinning Axe to lead Draven more accurately when he was benefitting from movement speed increases. Unfortunately, these changes were very disruptive for dedicated Draven players and didn’t offer enough potential for skilled players to showcase their skill through covering long distances between throwing and catching. We decided to revert the change.

-- Spinning Axe

  • Reverted a recent change affecting how Draven was led by Spinning Axe, restoring prior functionality
  • Axe drop location will no longer be placed on the far side of impassable terrain from Draven

And a short discussion about the change and why it was reverted (also taken from S@20): http://www.surrenderat20.net/2013/04/patch-35-draven-axe-catching-changes.html

MrBuffington1 votes

Doesn't this just mean there's an upper limit (based on his unenhanced movement speed) to how far an axe can be from Draven? I was more referring to the fact that Draven can modify how far an axe lands from him by how he moves, though I wasn't aware it's not affected by movement speed boosts.

In either case, I stand corrected, though I don't think this affects my other point, thanks though

GaleWinUnleashed1 votes

I'm not entirely sure either. I don't know whether it applies to his boot tier or anything, all I know for sure is that getting a speed steroid, either from his own W or someone else, does not change the distance from him that the axe will fall.

Your other point is perfectly valid, though the other guy doesn't seem to be wrong either, he just chose to phrase it in a way that could be misinterpreted more easily.

MXXIV1 votes

Everything gets complicated when lags is involved. But that would be fixed by higher data entropy - don't start me about programming :)

Father Cthulhu1 votes

{quoted}

In Draven's case, the location in which his axes will land was determined by League's programming

This is half true... If you stutter step, whatever direction you're walking in when it bounces back is 90% of the time where your axe is gonna land. So more or less its a bit of both.

killergraham1 votes

that idea is bad she not great as it is so lets make it to where she has no shot to win at all yeah .........

Gunpoint1 votes

Remove Kalista's passive. Balanced.

Major Sparkles1 votes

sigh Those who counter Kalista are very strong against her. Kalista is very strong against those that she counters. I don't see problem. I have not had any more trouble versus a Kalista then a vayne.

MrBuffington1 votes

Isn't that exactly the problem? There isn't much if anything certain champions can do vs Kalista; likewise there isn't much Kalista can do vs certain champion. This change might help address one of those issues.

Jesus is Savior1 votes

{quoted} In addition to adding more counterplay to Kalista, I think it makes her interactions more interesting; does she wait until near the end of her animation to 'lock in' a movement direction and risk not clicking in time to move, or does she 'lock in' a direction earlier to ensure her position, but also give her enemy more time to aim a predictive skillshot? Or does she play a mind game and not click a direction, leading her opponent to wait to fire a skillshot when they're waiting for the direction to appear?

If its even possible to "lock in" early, lets not make it telegraph sooner. Make it telegraph at the latest point in time possible.

Lets not punish east coast players for having higher ping and "needing to lock in early".

MrBuffington1 votes

I'm not sure if that's server-side or client-side, though it's an important thing to keep in mind.

Ariaflux1 votes

You cannot compare Draven and Kalista. As you have said yourself, Draven's spinning axes give him high damage, the trade-off is letting his opponent know where he will be and acts as a counterplay.

Kalista's passive also gives her an advantage like Draven's axes, but it's not damage, it's mobility. She was designed to dodge skillshots, and adding an indicator so that she can't dodge skillshots is just counter-intuitive to her design.

Looking at her ranked stats, she doesn't really scream "overpowered" to me. There were the knee-jerk "kiting OP, melee is ded" posts after her release, but it only really picked up steam after her plays in LCS. I think instead of trying to nerf her randomly, Riot should ask the pros on what made her a pick/ban choice. In my opinion, small changes to E and R will bring her in line of other ADCs in LCS, and not ruining her unique design, the part that actually makes her fun to play, her passive.

MrBuffington1 votes

I feel like I'm being misunderstood. I'm not comparing Draven and Kalista in terms of balance, I'm comparing them in terms of how they (can) interact in a lane. Also, I'm not saying "nerf Kalista she's OP", I'm saying "give Kalista and her lane opponents more ways to interact, because it's very binary at the moment in terms of who she counters and who counters her".

Ariaflux1 votes

I'm sorry, I thought that you were suggesting that she's too strong in the second paragraph. The change also seems to be much more of a nerf than a trade-off. It does not give her any new options, for example, she can already play mind games by not clicking any direction.

For the Draven vs Kalista example, I am not comparing them in terms of balance. I was debating the point that Draven's trade-off can be successfully incorporated into Kalista's kit to act as her trade-off, because their advantages are different. In other words:

Draven Advantage: High damage Trade-off: Position determined and telegraphed (more likely to get hit)

Kalista Advantage: Mobility Trade-off: Position telegraphed (more likely to get hit)

It doesn't work for Kalista because the trade-off directly conflicts with the advantage, unlike Draven.

MrBuffington1 votes

I'm not suggesting this as an end all change. I see two issues with Kalista, one is that she's very difficult for some champions, especially skillshot reliant champions, to deal with. The second issue is that she gets screwed over especially hard by certain champions, especially those with targeted cc, because she is so reliant on her mobility. One of the big principles Riot is emphasizing is that the game should not be won at champion select, that you have room to outplay your opponent even if you're in a slightly unfavorable match up. I'm suggesting this change because it gives more room for certain champions to play against her without directly removing anything from her kit. She's not losing any mobility, she just has to think more about how she uses it

TwoD1 votes

This is a stupid idea lol

Subject 51 votes

Make her jumps cost an extreme amount of mana, forcing her to not build complete damage.

Boom headshot!

Tentacle Love1 votes

[Skill Suggestion] : Learn to predict where a champion is going to land based on where they're lunging and how far you know they'll go.

Hint: Only the tier of Kalista's boots affect how far she leaps when she uses her Martial Poise passive.

You get an indicator on the ground for Draven because Draven gets an indicator on the ground to help him catch his axes. Kalista doesn't get to choose whether she'll land at that exact spot or near it.

Kalista auto-roots herself when attacking and then always leaps the same distance. You have a lot of telegraphed information that you can use to make an informed play.

If they did something like this for Kalista, they'd have to follow with the same kinds of "clarity nerfs" for Alistar, poppy, Vayne, Gnar, just about anyone that moves a champion to another place.

MrBuffington1 votes

I think you're misunderstanding me

[Skill Suggestion] : Learn to predict where a champion is going to land based on where they're lunging and how far you know they'll go. Hint: Only the tier of Kalista's boots affect how far she leaps when she uses her Martial Poise passive.

This isn't a complaint thread.

Kalista auto-roots herself when attacking

So does like, every champion. Kalista has a longer wind up animation and a dash at the tail end.

If they did something like this for Kalista, they'd have to follow with the same kinds of "clarity nerfs" for Alistar, poppy, Vayne, Gnar, just about anyone that moves a champion to another place.

I have no idea what you're talking about here.

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