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I have an issue with people saying Kalista's passive isn't her issue

SpecterVonBaren··55 votes·3,130 views

Recently on the Ask Riot http://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/2016/11/ask-riot-buffing-kalista/ Kalista was brought up about buffs for her and it generated a lot of discussion on Reddit about what they can keep in her kit, whether it's a numbers thing, can she be balanced as is, etc. etc. and an old argument came up that Kalista's issue is not her passive but things like her Rend and Ultimate being a free save for her support.

Some of you may know that I am very supportive (To put it lightly) of the idea that Kalista remain gutted until they replace her passive and I believe I have the best way to properly demonstrate WHY it's the core issue with her kit.

Take ANY marksman, any at all, MissFortune Sivir Varus Teemo Caitlyn and replace their current passive with Martial Poise. Imagine if Teemo could hop around in top lane while constantly applying his poison, imagine if Caitlyn not only outranged almost every single character in the game but also had the best kiting ability in the entire game, what if MF not only had high poke damage and a huge aoe ult but also was no longer susceptible to being dived?

Now you might say, "But those champs are balanced around their current passives, putting that much power into their passive would break them." And here in lies the problem, there's too much power in Kalista's passive. It doesn't matter what kit you attach Martial Poise to, it will always completely warp the balance of that kit unless the abilities are so one dimensional and weak that they might as well not even exist.

Do you not see the problem with saying "Get rid of her max health damage, the moving wards, the ability to save her support, and cap her rend stacks."? All it's saying is that you need to strip her of any unique or powerful strength she has outside of her passive before it will be balanced enough to not be overbearing.

Even if the passive wasn't outright removed, it would need to be turned into an active ability with a CD and set duration so that there could be moments when she couldn't kite everything to hell, but it would still in the end need to be changed from what it currently is.

86 Comments

TheHappyReaperz21 votes

I'd would just like to see something more appropriate to Kalista. Ashe shoots ice arrows, so her crits slow, the scout Teemo can become invisible, Caitlyn gets headshots with her rifle. What does the Spirit of Vengeance get? The ability to hop around.

ItsOrval5 votes

I would would

Leetri14 votes

Her ability is to chase you until the end of the world and punish you for your deceitful ways. You can't escape vengeance.

It Hertz When IP6 votes

That could just as easily be implemented as a MS buff or some kind of vision/reveal ability.

Only Play Darius3 votes

Maybe let her only hop towards the champion she is attacking, not backwards.

LegendmakerGX1 votes

{quoted}

I'd would just like to see something more appropriate to Kalista. Ashe shoots ice arrows, so her crits slow, the scout Teemo can become invisible, Caitlyn gets headshots with her rifle. What does the Spirit of Vengeance get? The ability to hop around.

I would agree but the problem here with her hop is that 90% of ADC ability takes skill shot and that is a problem when she can hop faster then the animation for the skill shot takes. Even pros miss a lot because of this Especially when a top or a jungler actually catches her out but she can still keep on landing damage while back steping. Wish Riot either make it so that if she is CC or slow that she can't jump during the duration.

500000000000000012 votes

I think Kalista should definitely be THE support combo champion. Strong when with her soulbound, maybe temporarily stronger when her soulbound dies (Spirit of Vengeance).

YCitizenSnipsY1 votes

Kalista is called the spear of vengeance becasue she was betrayed, not becasue she lost a friend. The whole support combo is definitely the worse part about her kit and doesn't fit thematically at all. I would love to see that part of her kit go just so she wouldn't only have two abilities when alone. No one sits by their support all game.

50000000000000001 votes

The thought I had was that her weakness is being alone/without her soulbound. But I'm okay with her kit being more focused on her theme, too. I feel like that would be a VGU scale rework, though.

Divewing7 votes

I think her free-save-the-support is too free (ergo, it needs some nerfs), but to pin the whole problem on that would be wrong.

The endless kiting is totally horrid, and I'm conflicted about Rend out-damaging smite. I feel like it shouldn't because smite shouldn't ever be invalidated, but at the same time it requires continual attacking and is something solely unique to kalista...

On a scale from least problematic to most I'd probably go: Rend < Supp-saving < Endless kiting

Surfer Ashe5 votes

{quoted}

I think her free-save-the-support is too free (ergo, it needs some nerfs), but to pin the whole problem on that would be wrong.

The endless kiting is totally horrid, and I'm conflicted about Rend out-damaging smite. I feel like it shouldn't because smite shouldn't ever be invalidated, but at the same time it requires continual attacking and is something solely unique to kalista...

On a scale from least problematic to most I'd probably go: Rend < Supp-saving < Endless kiting

Smite is invalidated by Consume and Feast as well, so I guess they shouldn't exist either based on your argument.

@OP: Kalista pays for hopping around with weaker autos, trash attack speed without Soulbound and autos do no damage if an enemy darts in and out of vision. So yes, she does pay for it, massively.

Divewing2 votes

now i may be wrong, but dont feast and consume cap at 1k vs monsters? which is the same as max smite?

Surfer Ashe6 votes

{quoted}

now i may be wrong, but dont feast and consume cap at 1k vs monsters? which is the same as max smite?

Except Consume's 1k damage is available well before level 18, or matches it at level 18 (will vary on what order you rank your spells) and Feast scales with AP along with 1k true damage from Level 6 onwards.

Both are almost as instanteous as smite.

Kalista requires her to be autoing for a respectable amount of time and it isn't true damage, meaning a miscalculation could still end up getting a major objective stolen.

But besides that point, your argument is "Kalista shouldn't outsmite smite" when other champions can and do with less work.

Divewing3 votes

the point is though at max level you WILL be able to contest between smite consume and feast. Rend there is no equal. It is simply THE single strongest execute to monsters

Edit: Not to mention one of those can ONLY be used on minions and monsters, and the other is an ultimate.

Ulquiorra9951 votes

I feel like Rend and Consume/Feast have different purposes in objective control. Rend is more of a security measure; if you start an objective way before enemy team arrives it's almost guaranteed to secure it. Feast and Consume are instant, meaning they can also be used to steal objectives all while being damn potent secures on their own - call me when you manage to take an objective an enemy has started first through Rend.

Sire Hippington4 votes

just that nunu has objective controll as his major strategic niche, Cho uses the cd of his ULT and also has that objective secureing as part of his identity, kallista is a supreme kiteing carry with teamfight dps, strong lane and powerfull utillity, her abillity to invalidate smite is just iceing on the cake and not core to her identity.

Chembaron Yamada3 votes

Outdamaging smite isn't solely unique to Kalista.

Jhin 4th shot outdamages it too. And it is even better for that in my opinion, Kalista is just able to prevent the enemy from stealing the dragon, Jhin on the other hand is able to secure the dragon for himself AND steal it from the enemy.

Ulquiorra9951 votes

I'd add Sentinel to the list of problems, simply because of how much value it has in pro games. And remember, as long as she's dominating there we won't see her in playable state for average Joes.

And I find Rend against objectives somewhat fair since she has to stack it. This means while you can hardly steal an objective from her, she can't use it to steal an objective from you unlike, say, Nunu or Cho who also invalidate Smite but do it instantly.

ChaddyFantome3 votes

I 100% agree.

Requiemsfire3 votes

To have it simply put, Kallista was so well designed for the carry role that in her prime she made all other ADC's obsolete by comparison. This showed a lot in competitive play through pick and ban phases where Kallista would always end up as a priority pick/ban in most games due to her very nature. Kallista could fit a lot of compositions while being supplemented with a lot of safety herself and forcing their opponents to counter pick and mold their composition around that.

50000000000000006 votes

Not having a weakness (what seems to be what you're suggesting) is not "well designed."

Requiemsfire3 votes

For the role in mind, she is well designed but for the game she's placed in, you'd be right. Kallista is the kind of champion where Riot basically tunnel visioned on her role and theme giving her tools to be a carry but forgetting to provide proper counterplay/weaknesses.

Photos of Ghosts3 votes

You simply need to cap rend ON BARON AND DRAKE because she's an ADC, not a jungler. And to remove her wards because she doesn't need them, that's not her identity. Her %hp damage is to increase her cooperation with the spear'd ally, same for ult. She's a kiter that needs her support. That's all. No need for a free smite or map control.

Photos of Ghosts2 votes

You simply need to cap rend ON BARON AND DRAKE because she's an ADC, not a jungler. And to remove her wards because she doesn't need them, that's not her identity. Her %hp damage is to increase her cooperation with the spear'd ally, same for ult. She's a kiter that needs her support. That's all. No need for a free smite or map control. EDIT: whoops, bad internet = double post

Imperial Japan2 votes

{quoted}

Recently on the Ask Riot http://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/2016/11/ask-riot-buffing-kalista/ Kalista was brought up about buffs for her and it generated a lot of discussion on Reddit about what they can keep in her kit, whether it&#039;s a numbers thing, can she be balanced as is, etc. etc. and an old argument came up that Kalista&#039;s issue is not her passive but things like her Rend and Ultimate being a free save for her support.

Some of you may know that I am very supportive (To put it lightly) of the idea that Kalista remain gutted until they replace her passive and I believe I have the best way to properly demonstrate WHY it&#039;s the core issue with her kit.

Take ANY marksman, any at all, MissFortune Sivir Varus Teemo Caitlyn and replace their current passive with Martial Poise. Imagine if Teemo could hop around in top lane while constantly applying his poison, imagine if Caitlyn not only outranged almost every single character in the game but also had the best kiting ability in the entire game, what if MF not only had high poke damage and a huge aoe ult but also was no longer susceptible to being dived?

Now you might say, &quot;But those champs are balanced around their current passives, putting that much power into their passive would break them.&quot; And here in lies the problem, there&#039;s too much power in Kalista&#039;s passive. It doesn&#039;t matter what kit you attach Martial Poise to, it will always completely warp the balance of that kit unless the abilities are so one dimensional and weak that they might as well not even exist.

Do you not see the problem with saying &quot;Get rid of her max health damage, the moving wards, the ability to save her support, and cap her rend stacks.&quot;? All it&#039;s saying is that you need to strip her of any unique or powerful strength she has outside of her passive before it will be balanced enough to not be overbearing.

Even if the passive wasn&#039;t outright removed, it would need to be turned into an active ability with a CD and set duration so that there could be moments when she couldn&#039;t kite everything to hell, but it would still in the end need to be changed from what it currently is.

They should make her passive go into an ability and become a toggle able ability high mana per second. It could force her into a fancy new manamune build path as well

Sire Hippington2 votes

Honestly, with how her passive is currently tuned, it's not that much of an issue anymore. If i run ghost, i can actually keep up with her on most melees(more easily as vs ashe and her permaslow actually or teemo and his W speed) Though i generally agree that her passive certainly should get changed, right now it's not that much more than a fancy walking animation, tpugh harder to predict which sucks for skillshots, but as soon as it becomes more, it's a huge issue.

Still, my biggest problem with her actually are her ult and her rend. That failsave for her support is just really frustraiting to face. As long as shes somewhere nearby, her support basically can't be cought out, which enables him to stupidly agressive plays. Like a tham W on 1k range....

And for her rend, infinit stacking just has issues. With something like darius or twitch, you have a good idea on when it's time to disengage from the trade to avoid alot pain, and when playing them you know when it's time to pull the trigger. Vs kallista, you can only rougthly guess how much damage she already stacked up, it's really, really hard to estimate how well a trade is going if sooooooo much of her damage is backloaded into that infinit execute burst. At the same time, it's really hard as kallista to estimate when it's time to pull the trigger and actually get the execute. It's just lacking clearity. As a result, you really need alot of raw experience on kallista to do well, even if you can grasp all the mechanics fast, you still need to incest alot time just to get a feel for the rend stacks, and the same is with playing against her. Unless you played alot vs kallista, you will always have issues estimateing the execute burst of her E. And her executeing dragon/baron with far more damage than smite does is kinda bullshit aswell, atleast cap it at the same damage as smite...

agbudar1 votes

you should not need a summoner spell just to be able to hit her she is an adc.

Sire Hippington1 votes

For most other adc, i actually get trouble even with a summoner(if they position atleast decently and get just a bit of peel). Kallista has no hard escape, and not much range, once she hits you you can usually close the gap, and once you're on top, she needs some time to get distance again. And most noticeably, she does less damage than other adc so you actually survive till your cds come up again to finish her off.

But to be clearly: I do not think her passive is healthy(not on a ranged anyway), but it's not her only issue, probably not even her biggest.

YJRBqwXJcS2 votes

anybody who thinks kalista's passive isn't a problem were never around for when lucian's E had 0 cost and way less cooldown

SpecterVonBaren1 votes

God almighty I still have no idea how that got out of PBE. I still think that's the stupidest thing I've ever seen Riot do. There wasn't even the vagueness of other things where you weren't quite sure how it would work out when it hit live, people ON PBE showed how broken that was.

Kurbeh2 votes

Kalista was designed around too many things. Riot just gave her everything. Amazing synergy with her support thanks to W passive and R. Fantastic 1v1 thanks to passive and E. Tons of utility with passive, W and E. Oh and also have some poke with Q while we are at it because why not?

Way too much stuff in one kit, Kalista could have easily been two or three seperate Marksmen that all focus on one unique strength, instead it all got shoved into a single champion for some reason.

Just make a supportsynergizing-ADC, a kiting 1v1 ADC and a objective-focused ADC instead of a her .__. She already needed a complete rework the day she came out and will never be balanced properly unless her entire kits gets redone.

agbudar2 votes

she has too much utility for a adc period.

better smite then smite infinite dashes knock up ult save/engage wards slows

in fact she has more utility then most supports

that should tell you how dumb her kit really is.

Truly Prideful2 votes

I would honestly have no issues with Kalista if they'd just replace her passive. It's far too powerful to be in the same kit as her Rend and that ultimate. Give her a passive that gives even more synergy for her partner and herself or something that goes with the whole Vengeance theme. Just doesn't feel like she can even be balanced as long as her passive is there.

GULAG 4 U2 votes

I don't see this being said about kalista, but one of her major design problems is: She doesn't reflect her theme of vengeance. Certainlyt generally does the "reflect the theme" pretty well, but it's nonexistent in kalista.

warpenguin5552 votes

How I want to rework Kalista:

Passive: Soul Mark: Ghosts removed, but rest of the effect is unchanged, this ability already even has per champion level scaling.

Q: Pierce: While This ability is on Cooldown, Kalista can reactivate it to summon a sentinel. Recharge time for this stays as is however

W: Martial Pose: Toggle effect:

Toggled Off: Kalista gains charges of Martial Pose while near her Oathsworn. Stacks up to 5/5/10/10/15 times*. Will not charge stacks while Toggled On or during Vengeance.

Toggeld On: Each stack of Martial Pose allows Kalista to dash in a targeted direction on her Auto Attacks, Q- Pierce, and E- Rend, while consuming 1 stack per hop.

Passive: Vengeance: If an enemy kills Kalista's Oathsworn, Martial Pose turns into Vengance basic attack's against that target allow Kalista to dash without consuming any stacks of Martial Pose, and Rend deals % Max Health True Damage to the Oathsworns killer (1% per spear***). This effect lasts for 10*1 seconds.

Removed: 90% scaling on her autos. Her Basic attacks will also hit even if she lost sight of them.

I moved Martial Pose to W and gave it a toggle effect so it wouldn't be annoying for the Player to keep accidentally using up their charges. I also gave her %Max Health True damage to go with her thematic of avenging the Oathsworn. Also i do believe that there is some good counterplay there as well. If you didnt kill her support, nothing changes but you can now catch her, however if Garen decides to kill Braum then go after Kalista, he's going to have a bad time. Also if you have like 20 spears in you from chasing a Kalista, you have been chasing her too long.

Q has the Sentinels now because i felt really bad about removing them. For some reason i think they're cute... i might be a little messed up

Sentinel renamed to Soul Mark because the ghosts were moved and the passive effect of this ability actually has its own name, which is Soul Mark.

Rend's only change was explained above and the only other change it would receive is it's tooltip also having its Vengeance effect stated.

Fate's Call has no changes.

Is she still overloaded? Yes. Very much so. However I feel like limiting her mobility is the best way to make her a healthy champion, and her new Vengeance mechanic gives her another tie in between her lore and her gameplay, since it feels like the only tie in she currently has is with Black Spear and Fate's Call.

  • denotes that while i think there should be cap limit to her stacks, im not sure what it should be and the value's i set there are just place holders to show it would be possible to increase the cap and that it does cap out.

*1 denotes the same, i dont actually know how long this effect should last, but wanted to show that she does try to seek Vengeance

*2 Again, value subject to change. Just shows that each spear rend pulls from them should increase the damage.

SpecterVonBaren1 votes

Hhm, that's actually not that bad an idea for a rework, I agree that making her mobility be tied to a cd of some kind is the best way to make it healthy since it would limit how much she can do it and make her have to make choices on when to use it.

Saianna1 votes

Take ANY marksman, any at all, and replace their current passive with Martial Poise

Vayne

... >.>

SpecterVonBaren2 votes

??? Vayne would love to have Kalistas passive.

Saianna2 votes

Vaynes Q = Kalistas passive >.>

ChaddyFantome2 votes

{quoted}

Vaynes Q = Kalistas passive >.>

Now Vayne never needs to Q because she can do t on every auto.

SpecterVonBaren1 votes

So? Her current passive is just more movespeed towards enemy champs, with Kalista's passive she could double down on being a dueling, inescapable monster.

Saianna1 votes

Ok, lemme explain:

Vaynes Q, TUMBLE is pretty much Kalistas passive. It has 1s CD (once maxed) and lets her be safe from melees.

Got that? Jeez

SpecterVonBaren1 votes

I.... know? And how would having both be at all detrimental to her?

Meep Man1 votes

Ah, the age old issue of a champion with dual identities. Do we keep one aspect or the other? Do we keep hyper mobile ADC or Support link ADC?

Chembaron Yamada2 votes

In my opinion: keep the link to the support. She is a ghost granting revenge for people summoning her. It is her whole identity when it comes to lore.

Look at the cinematic they gave us when they released her or read the story about the woman summoning her. You don't see nor read about her hopping all over the place.

Cowseed1 votes

I f*cking GOT IT!! Switch Kalista's Passive with Urgot's and BOOM! Two champs fixed with 1 swap. :p

Elewd1 votes

tbh Urgot has one of the stronger passives out there already.

Chembaron Yamada2 votes

The imagination of that fat undead abomination hopping happily over the battlefield..... xD

TyroneWatermelon1 votes

Her tradeoff for her passive is 90% ad damage(which no marksman for),zero burst damage without stacking spears,two of her abilities are utility wise.

SpecterVonBaren1 votes

And she became trash because of that tradeoff and people want her buffed up or those changes reverted.

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