My Kalista Rework Proposition
IAMA mastery 7 Kalista with 119k mastery points. I care about Kalista (she was my first competitive adc). I played her through every update. I mastered her at the greatest patch and every following nerf patch. So why is she the most un-played ADC right now? She's not fun anymore. She's one of the slowest auto-attacking champs in the game. Why did she need such a serious auto-attack nerf? This is my solution...
Kalista's Fun Factor: The ability to quickly apply Rend stacks to an entire minion wave and Rending them ALL; Culling their tiny existence Instantaneously. Kalista is also a kiting master, using short leaps after every attack. A skilled player can lure an enemy in and kite them to death. Her theme encourages her to pair with someone and together they are stronger.
Stat Scaling: Remove the attack speed nerf. Her base attack speed needs to be fast at ALL stages of the game. Low attack speed = less viable and less fun. It doesn't make sense for her kit to suffer for half of the game because her attack speed is not the problem. Right now we can argue that her damage is split 50/50 between AA and Rend. Let's make that 25/75 in favor of Rend. Riot can easily control how strong Kalista is simply by buffing or nerfing Rend's damage and slow. Read the changes I made to Rend and other abilities below.
Passive. Martial Poise No Changes. (Leap after auto-attack, etc.)
Q. Pierce Does % Health Damage only. (This should be used for initiating a fight - not last hitting.) Pierces through enemy minions and monsters. (This helps with wave clear early in the game and can stop an enemy flank if used with Rend.) Does not transfer Rend stacks upon killing a unit (Too confusing for everyone involved.)
W. Soul Marked Passive: No changes. (Increased AD when nearby Oathsworn.) Active: Bind an ally champion as Kalista's Oathsworn. (This used to spawn a sentinel, but if the whole team is warding, sentinels are pretty unnecessary.)
E. Rend Scales with AD and Level.
R. Fate's Call After a 3s channel, Kalista globally teleports to her Oathsworn with decaying bonus AD. (This is a big change to her kit, so lets talk about it below.)
What does this add to the game? This allows Kalista and her support to split push. In the past, separating from her support would mean certain death, but now she can escape using her ultimate. The Ultimate's new synergy with supports would create new metas and unstoppable duos (ex. Kalista + Yorick, Yasuo, Tryndamere). She can choose to bind herself to a champion in the team that is doing poorly.
What does this take away? The knock-up. Sure, It's nice to save your support when they get caught out and for Kalista to escape ganks, but I rarely see it used other than those two instances. It doesn't feel right when a Kalista initiates a fight with the knock-up. It can work, but there are better initiators in the champion pool.
After writing this I'm already starting to have doubts about the teleport. Regardless, please provide constructive criticism in the comments below. I want to hear what you guys think!