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Kalista update / Quality of life changes

Betràyed··11 votes·3,091 views

Hi, I am a high diamond kalista player on the NA server. This last season i was able to climb from gold 3 to Diamond 3 playing almost exclusively kalista at the end of the season. It is true that kalista has too many strengths as a champion and does need some quality of life changes to be both better in solo queue, more user friendly, and worse in pro play so that she isnt overpowered. We need to preserve her identity as a champion while also making sure that an exceptional kalista player isnt able to win every single lane and be unmatched in power through the early and mid game.

The current suggested change on PBE we are trying is to remove 50 attack range from Kalista. I think this change would most likely be alright as a way to punish her ability to engage on people from so far away with Pierce and Rend to get on top of them and run them down, this doesnt offer much for counterplay at the beginning of the game and could be fixed by a range nerf.

The second area of concern is the raw power granted to the player by Fates Call. The crowd control duration is simply too long at max ranks. Although it should still be impactful and is a fundamental aspect of the champion 2 seconds is a very long time to be knocked up and if someone does not have flash this is usually lethal to them at level 16. My solution to this would be to keep the knockup the same at rank 1 ( 1 second ) and have it remain at 1 second. The counter to this would be to reduce the cooldown on the ability effectively removing the 7.22 nerf. (150/120/90) > ( 120/90/60 ) 1 second at all ranks.

To compensate for kalista's new lack of range it will be much more difficult for her to stay alive in team fights so we should compensate for this change by making some quality of life changes to her passive Martial Poise. Currently Kalista is able to "Go in" with Martial poise better than she is able to kite with it in some scenarios. Ideally she is able to retain her status as a kiting god while still being punished for any mistake she makes. Her identity as a champion should not be sacrificed, as a super high skill cap ad carry with alot of ability to flex mechanical ability on the enemy team. My suggested changes to Martial Poise would be:

"Kalista's auto attacks have unique drawbacks, They deal (90%) of her total ad, Miss if she loses sight before they hit and cannot be canceled. The range of Martial poise scaled with Boot tier and is increased by 25% if she is moving backwards.

This change would make her able to still keep her spacing at this new 500 range when she is trying to kite and survive vs threats directly onto her, while still leaving her open to harassment from other ranged abilities and champions. I think this combined with the range nerf would still make her very strong in early game skirmishes and team fights, she would just have to play more as intended instead of diving into the backline with Fates call like some immortal god.

In regards to Sentinel and Soul Mark (W) The damage does not need to be changed at all in my opinion, but the duration you are able to proc it could be increased from 10s to 12s or 15s. The ai from the sentinels could be improved if possible so that they dont always chimp out and do nothing.

The last time we touched rend we tried to remove its power in lane and ability to endlessly reset as a source of damage, i am not a fan of this exact change but rend could still be nerfed as a way to adjust Kalista. Specifically we will look at the utility granted from this ability, Slow : 25% / 30% / 35% / 40% / 45% I think this is perhaps too strong in the early game but could not be given the adjustment of range. Perhaps we could try 20 % / 25% / 30 % / 35% / 40 % Removed : Rend no longer stacks if the ability goes on cooldown. I think this change would again raise the skill cap of kalista and would prevent her from using rend as a source of damage and self peel and would make it more clear to both her and the enemy team when she does not have rend, opening her up to more counter play.

TLDR Suggested Changes Attack Range 550 - 500 Martial Poise Added The range of Martial Poise scaled with boot tier and is increased by 25% if kalista is lunging backwards Pierce No change Sentinel - Ai improvement and slightly added cooldown on Soulmark Rend - No longer stacks when on cooldown. Fates Call - Knock up reduced from ( 1s / 1.5s / 2s ) to 1 second at all ranks. Cooldown reduced from (150/120/90) to (120/90/60)

14 Comments

LethalTempo Jhin11 votes

These are not QoL changes. These are huge nerfs.

Ahristocats3 votes

{quoted}

to be both better in solo queue, more user friendly, and worse in pro play so that she isnt overpowered.

exactly!

but i don't think your changes do that

her ult is too broken in pro play and it needs changes i think her ult should not make the ally untargeable

Betràyed2 votes

Not sure that would even be possible since she literally rips them into the spirit world and throws them at someone. the crowd control reduction is a huge hit to late game since its halved at rank 3. I agree that its utility is just ridiculous but idk what else we could do, it has to be good to make up for her lack of crit scaling and late game damage. Hopefully the range changes will open her up to more counter play, and she wont just get away with poor scaling by locking down someone for 2 seconds and killing them before they do anything

Akali is SO HOT11 votes

I think it's more her ability to do more damage to objectives than smite that makes her so good in pro play and her ult is also nice icing on the cake. Basically having 2 smites on your team, especially in organized pro play, is really powerful.

Betràyed2 votes

Lets say we capped the rend damage to epic monsters at 500. How would this harm pro play at all? We now know exactly how much damage rend will always do, with voice comms the baron is a 100% anyway with this.

Cant expect a professional team to miss a baron smite when they just rend and smite for 1500 at the same time. Any ability can be combined with smite to secure it.

ValyrianBlade1 votes

{quoted}

Lets say we capped the rend damage to epic monsters at 500. How would this harm pro play at all? We now know exactly how much damage rend will always do, with voice comms the baron is a 100% anyway with this.

Cant expect a professional team to miss a baron smite when they just rend and smite for 1500 at the same time. Any ability can be combined with smite to secure it.

I'm not certain, but I think Rend is currently unbeatable since it can deal more damage than smite. If it was capped at 500 damage, it wouldn't be nearly the problem. There are other abilities that can deal ~500 damage to Baron/Dragon that don't get hugely prioritized by pro players. Cho'gath and Nunu are the two obvious ones. I believe Lee Sin's resonating strike is capped, but scales with missing health and still does something like 400 damage.

Baron has 70MR, so if we assume a champion has a void staff (35% pen, leaving 45.5MR or 31% damage reduction) we can calculate how much AP some burst champions would need to have to deal 500 damage to it (considering instant or near-instant spells only, so for example Ezreal Ult or Veigar W don't count as both teams can coordinate with it) as 500/0.69 = 725.

e.g. Veigar Q: 230 + 60%AP = 725 if he has 825 AP Annie W: 250 + 85%AP = 725 if she has 559 AP

Of course, the downside to these examples is this only works in the late game. It can't be used to secure early dragons (when AP numbers are still low). Kalista is probably hugely prioritized because of her ability to make early dragons far less risky and to snowball from there, in addition to her raw Baron secure power.

DontTouchMyBall3 votes

As far as I know what I thought it would be nerfed was her ult. We already had a cooldown increase on it be4 and I expected further ult nerfs but now we get less 50 range instead?? Wow!! Sure! Why the fuck not? I sure love it to take it both ways!

Ive practised her for quite while last season in normals. I was planning to try to master her and try to climb with her in soloQ on my second acc as an ADC one trick this season. But at this point it'll be more rewarding to pick other ADC like (the ever-non-nerfed-soloQ-monster) Twitch or the recently buffed (for some reason) Jinx at this point. I'll be trolling by picking Kalita at this point, right?

Why are we making her less rewarding to master in the soloQ environment?? She isnt a soloQ problem to begin with, or is she? She is an interesting and more challenging ADC than the others, that's why I wanted to try to get good with her. If I wanted elo, I'd be picking other ADCs. Thanks a lot pro players!

Quality of life changes?? Heres a valid quality of life change: A near invisible circle around her only seen by the Kalista player similar to how Azir's Soldiers and Orianna's Ball work so we now the exact E's range (Rends's Range). Now thats what I would call a quality of life change.

Why would we want a ult nerf even after losing 50 range??? Perhaps the lunging backwards really justifies it, and I am sorry, I cannot see how. Might be because I am not a Kalista main and might aswell never be at this point. Feelsbad, Im reallly salty about this. I think I'll learn Draven instead or I'll just keep playing Ashe, yeah Ashe is never banned, pls dont nerf Ashe to the ground next x,x

EDIT:

{quoted}

You know on the pbe her change got reduce by 50 ? http://www.surrenderat20.net/p/current-pbe-balance-changes.html

Yes I know! And no compensation! I rather not have an ult instead of that. Ffs why did I have to be so hyped to make her my main ADC

Redcid2 votes

She is my go to ADC atm and the nerfs are completely absurd and unjustified, her range isnt even the problem in pro play, her objective control is. So they should just nerf her damage on large monsters and rework her ult instead of killing her once again like they did in season 6. She cant even be a lane bully anymore since the most stupid adc atm can just outrange and outpoke her (Twitch/ Kog/ even vayne ffs) i dont even understand why they are not nerfing Twitch, he's been top tier adc for a whole year now, they didnt nerf him once.

Isnt it stupid that twitch can still stay invisible while being attacked ?!

AirKingNeo2 votes

I would not nerf the attack range.

I would just nerf her ult or give her a new one and make Rend have max 300 damage vs monsters (maybe scale this max damage with champion level, so it's like 700 at level 18).

Plastic 5 ADC1 votes

{quoted}

I would not nerf the attack range.

I would just nerf her ult or give her a new one and make Rend have max 300 damage vs monsters (maybe scale this max damage with champion level, so it's like 700 at level 18).

Sounds better to me.

LOSINGISMYPRIDE1 votes

You know on the pbe her change got reduce by 50 ? http://www.surrenderat20.net/p/current-pbe-balance-changes.html

Betràyed1 votes

Yes of course, this is a direct response to that, its obvious we should retune something to make her better and or healthier for the game. i would much rather see this than see her get just flat nerfed. i dont hate kalista. I MAIN kalista.

Plastic 5 ADC1 votes

Even more nerfs?

The fuck, the range nerf is already huge.

She has a huge skill cap and doesn't need nerfs.

Unloved Kalista 1 votes
  • Hi, Im another Kalsita main. I played her in s7 from bronze 4 silver after the season ended and then peaked at gold 3 lp 60 during preseason. I am currently the fith most played Kalsita in NA region sitting with a million mastery points. Even i have hard time formulating an opinion of how to balance her. SO in terms of Solo/q play, I strongly believe that she actually fine the way she is for solo q

I fell in love with this champion because she has the mobility that every adc wants, the ability to generate picks with fates call which is rare among the adc class, and most of all is rend.

But this champion is so hard to balance. 3 of her abilities are already OP by its own right ( fate call, martial poise, rend ) and probably 3 of the strongest spells in the game. Meanwhile Pierce is sittng on a 1:1 ad ratio that triggers soul mark, stacks rend and martial poise with a projectile speed of 1100

And because she requires a high floor skill, experience, mechanical intensity, game knowledge, execution, and a high skill capp. All of her amazing abilities are very hard to abuse in soloq. I think shes fine in solo q because it rewards the skilled players to kite and chase like a monster. But admittedly, i have to say that shes very abusive, oppressive, and unhealthy to play against.

Betrayed, im not sure if you agree with me if shes fine to play in solo q, but pro play is hard to compromise. LIke, for her to become healthy in pro play, riot is gonna give kalsita the azir treatment, where is high safe range gets nerfed. When the azir update hit, i was sad that azir lost his alot of his range on how far he can let his soldiers dash. I dont want the same thing to happen to kalista when they changed: either rend, martial, poise, or fate call gotta go.

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