Kalista Rebalancing

Just a couple of proposals to make 's kit feel a little less overloaded, while still allowing her to be that late game monster that we all know and love.

Martial Poise Remove this as her passive. No, she won't be losing her hops. I'll get to it in a second.

Sworn Avenger New Passive Each time Kalista's Oathsworn receives a certain amount of damage from an enemy champion, she gains a stack of Sworn Avenger. At 3 stacks, she can trigger her W at no cost for 15 seconds. She also gains a flat attack speed and flat attack damage steroid proportional to how much damage her Oathsworn took.

Pierce Q Active unchanged, tack a free dash equal to Martial Cadence's onto it.

Sentinel W Removed. Free wards with 5000 effective range are obnoxious. Even if they give 10 gold.

Soul Marked/Martial Poise New W Toggle ability. When Soul Marked is active, Kalista and her Oathsworn's autoattacks deal bonus magic damage if they land on the same target within a certain interval._ Martial Poise is disabled while this is on._ When Martial Poise is active, Kalista gets her hops on each auto attack at the cost of a small amount of mana per hop (a la Jinx rockets). Soul Marked is disabled while this is on.

Rend E The active is unchanged. However, while Rend is on cooldown, Martial Poise cannot be activated. The W will be stuck on Soul Marked for the duration of Rend's cooldown.

Fate's Call R Reduce the pull range to 1000 from 1400. Any targeted CC that would have landed on the Oathsworn, or any CC already present on the Oathsworn, will manifest or finish itself after the Oathsworn is thrown. The throw range charges up throughout the 4 seconds of stasis instead of instantly having access to the 1200 range throw.

So let's talk about the reasoning behind these changes. Martial Poise as her passive right now is just free dashes for no good reason. Not fun. Really annoying to play against, especially with skillshots. She pretty much forces you to pick targeted skills, thereby limiting the strategic diversity and drastically reducing counterplay. The dashes should cost something. Having a mana cost attached to the dash will put her on a similar growth curve to . She won't be able to dash all over the place early and mid game, and she'll have to ration her dashes strategically. Late game, she'll have the mana and attack speed to do as she pleases. Note that this change will not remove the dash from her Q, nor will it make dashing with Q cost anything beyond Q's cost. Why? Because the Q costs something.

The new passive rewards Kalista's supports for doing their job in fights. It also brings back the potential to make plays using Kalista's full strength, even in the early and mid game--you just won't have that full power all the time. Late game, you shouldn't need Sworn Avenger to make plays; it's just icing on the cake at that point.

Removing the Sentinel wards from W should be common sense. Free, long-lasting, mobile wards with 5000 effective range. Let that sink in for a second. Yes, they have limited vision; yes, they can be killed; yes, they give 10 gold. They're still free, they still last forever, they still move, they still have 5000 range. You don't even risk yourself to "place" them. It's obnoxious and it needs to go.

Changing the hops so that Kalista can't access them when Rend is on cooldown creates an interesting dynamic that affects her decisions to Rend or not to Rend. Because she can't hop while Rend is on cooldown, it limits her abusing Rend as a kiting tool and as a chasing tool. She has to think about whether she wants the kite/chase potential or whether she wants the execute/secure potential. She has to choose between one or the other. Double-mashing Rend once you have stacks on a minion and a champion will still be a thing, but it'll be a tool to consider using rather than a bread-and-butter combo with almost no downsides.

Finally, the changes to her R. Fate's Call has always been really annoying for people trying to focus her support down and having them pulled out from under suppressions, stuns, etc. We have to fill that sort of role now. Reducing the pull range on her R helps alleviate some the BS, last-second saves. Changing it so that Fate's Call doesn't instantly clean all CC (not permanently, anyway), makes it so that a well-orchestrated gank by the enemy can't be instantly turned and burned for a Kalista triple kill. Same reasoning with the slow range extension for the throw. It's not fun to be farming 1v1 and have Kalista pull her support from the brush as they walk into lane and instantly engage you 2v1 from halfway down the lane. Including a charge time will allow people a little more time to run if they're right on the fringe of the engage range, while still allowing plays to be made up close and personal.

Hopefully these changes will make Kalista's kit feel a little less overloaded and a little more meaningful in terms of strategic decisions. It should also raise the skill cap on her a little bit so you can't just shift-Rclick your way around teamfights for free jukes. Tell me what you guys think below! Cheers!