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Ideas on Fixing Kayle for the Better

BrightWîngs·6/19/2019, 5:58:04 PM·6 votes·5,364 views

Disclaimer: I'm not going to say this is 100% the solution I'm not gonna say it's 100% needs to be this way I'm just trying to get some ideas flowing around.

Kayle in her current state is not too great in my opinion right now. Her in comparison to other late game scaling Champions seems unfair. Let me explain. Kayle is a late game champion therefore she needs to be weak early game and stronger late. The issue here is that she is the WEAKEST out of all the late game Champions early and takes the longest to scale and be of any help to the team while scaling not that much harder if at all compared to other late game champions.

Few comparisons/examples:

Jax Jax scales SUPER hard in the late game yet isn't really weak at all early the justification to this I think is that he is melee champion and his items are expensive but my point here is that he can be of use in the early game and even fight his opponent. Kassadin is the best comparison because he is very weak early and its more levels both him and Kayle want, but Kassadin can start being useful at level 6 he is obviously not as strong as he would be if he was level 11 or 16. My point being Kassadin can start influencing the game and be helpful to the team much earlier and he scales just as hard.

The current play style of Kayle is AFK farm and get Klepto procs and hope the enemy doesn't snowball. Not only is this a pretty boring play style but it kinda sucks for the team that has the Kayle because by just picking the champion you are at a massive disadvantage until she scales and basically making it a 4v5 for the first 20 to 30 minutes of the game.

MY IDEA TO FIX KAYLE

I think redirecting and shifting power in her passive

ZEALOUS (1) Stays the same she remains a melee champion, possibly lower Attack speed bonus from being Exalted reason being she will become a ranged champion at level 6 instead and this may make her too strong in a fight early

AFLAME (6) Kayle becomes ranged BUT REMOVE the splash damage from E and no longer gets waves from being Exalted. Kayle as a champion just isn't designed to be a melee champion and keeping her in this state until level 11 is what I think makes her the most useless. The idea here is that this allows her to play the champion as intended earlier but can no longer shove waves as hard. The waves from being Exalted and the splash from Starfire Spellblade (E) are really good for shoving waves however these two things often make wave management difficult ( Which is VERY important Top Lane) causing the waves to push when you don't want them to. Kayle wants to be safe and under tower if she is not under tower farming can be a HIGH risk against most lane opponents. In summary Level 6 makes Kayle ranged allowing her to be able to farm a little more safely and be helpful as the damage carry she is intended to be earlier BUT loses out on AOE damage to do damage and shove waves quickly.

ARISEN (11) Starfire Spellblade (E) now does the AOE splash damage, when Exalted basic attacks will give waves of fire and Zealous's bonus attack speed is increase remains the same.

TRANSCENDENT (16) I have 2 ideas for this:

  1. Remove the True damage on waves but she is permanently Exalted and maybe do a little more bonus magic damage in place of the true damage not being there
  2. Keep the True damage but she can't be permanently Exalted and still has to stack it up five times before she can be Exalted

Again this is just an idea to have some discussion and get flow of other ideas. [poppy-wink]

15 Comments

Jarring6/19/2019, 6:31:51 PM1 votes

build manamune first item. Changes everything. By the time you get Guinsoo's on top of upgraded muramana causes Kayle's winrate to spike up drastically.

Muramana is the best on-hit item in the game once its upgraded. Literally does 24-120 dmg at 2k max mana, and goes up by a big amount with more and more mana.

2nd item is up to you. From what i've seen most people go Nashor's second item, and it's been working out great for them, but I don't think it's the optimal 2nd item for her manamune/guinsoo core.

Experiment and find out what's best for you in particular. I'd recommend going Manamune > Essence Reaver > Guinsoo's Rageblade > Runaan's Hurricane. These 4 items are seriously ridiculous on Kayle. I was pumping out 1.3k+ dps on main target and 900-1k+ dmg on secondary targets on 3 dummy targets using just these 4 items + berserker's greaves. 5th and final item open for debate. Maybe IE or GA or some other utility. Essence Reaver is better than IE on Kayle specifically for its mana return on attacks(which synergizes with manamune) and the 20% cdr which is amazing on Kayle.

There are also options for other items to go for 2nd like Trinity force or Iceborn Gauntlet. I was even thinking of an offtank build for Kayle using Iceborn Gauntlet. Like, depending on matchup you'd build into the Gauntlet + Spirit Visage and may only partially complete one or both, finishing them after completing guinsoo's, then build Hextech Gunblade as final item. Manamune + Guinsoo is incredible damage by themselves already. Being able to offtank on top of it would be interesting. especially considering she already has a heal in her kit and her natural ranged attack speed with multiple on-hit passives benefits spell vamp/life leech immensely.

Really depends on the game for that one though, like, it might be worthwhile to try it if you know you're going to be a high priority target for the enemy team.

Anyways, after you get the feel of the build, I would start to experiment with other rune pages. Like, I don't think it's necessary for her to go Klepto. People only go Klepto on her because her lane phase is so garbage. but I'm like.. if her lane phase is so garbage, what makes you think you can actually get enough klepto procs for the keystone to be worth it?

I like Lethal Tempo and bloodlines/ravenous hunter. For the off-tank build, I'd experiment. My first few experiments would be with grasp and conquerer, but i'd probably end up using the same builds i normally do with both bloodlines and ravenous hunter(they both make a huge difference for this build in particular. I'd almost prioritize them over the keystone due to not getting any leech anywhere else item-wise.

PTA is a good option as well, people don't expect the damage. Having the execute in particular makes the PTA strat really cheesy.

Jarring6/19/2019, 6:55:52 PM1 votes

Anyways. I like your ideas. I mean, I don't really agree with any of them, but i think you're on the right track.

I have a ton of ideas for champions as well. I've had a bunch regarding Kayle.

In the past, I wanted her E dmg to be cut in half so that she could get charges of it.. Allowing her to have more command over her ability to attack from a range before she hit level 11.

Just thought of another idea regarding her range as I was reading your post as well.

Like, maybe one of her skills passively increases her range with each point put into it like Templar Assassin?

That way, Kayle would actually make sense as a champion. ATM she just doesn't make any sense at all the way she just magically becomes a ranged champion at level 11. but I guess you can't expect everything Riot to come out with to make sense.

The rest of her kit though, like, the fact she gets true damage at 16, is only there because of how shit her early game is. Game is basically saying if you managed to make it to level 16 on Kayle at a relevant time in the game, you deserve it because of how shit the champion is for the first 10 levels.

If she wasn't utter dogshit for the first 10 levels, the true damage would be totally unnecessary.

Jarring6/19/2019, 7:09:59 PM1 votes

Also regarding Klepto. Go back and look at your games and see how much gold you get on average from Klepto procs(especially early game pre lvl 11).

I guarantee the benefits you get from another rune page outweigh the gold income from Klepto by a HUGE margin. I imagine you'd might get something like idk 600 at MOST 30 minutes into the game?

That's not even tier 2 boots. Meanwhile you can get 40-110% AS, damage, etc. etc. elsewhere on other runepages that don't require you to hit the enemy laner with ur E every time it's up when you're more inclined to use it to CS ANYWAYS.

Champions that effectively use Klepto are able to easily CS on top of getting Klepto procs multiple times per ability.

PermaJinxed6/20/2019, 12:17:25 AM1 votes

Clepto Kayle is about the skill potion to get ranged at 10 not 11. It's not about income... That's secondary..

Jarring6/20/2019, 3:55:13 AM1 votes

Like, make a training game. First do Klepto doing whatever build you'd think you'd have at lvl 11 on average. Then make another game doing Lethal Tempo doing the same build minus 1k gold(more than enough tbh in actuality it'd be a lot less) and see which build does more damage.

Could even try doing the build i suggested which I think puts Kayle to her maximum efficiency. Manamune(btw there's an option where u can automatically upgrade it to muramana) > Essence Reaver > Guinsoo's > Runaan's

TBH I think you'll see where I'm going with this when u try that build tbh. I think the first test the Lethal Tempo will still come out on top regardless of what build you use. But the muramana ER rageblade into runaan's build should really put her over the top. Just getting muramana and guinsoo's alone is crazy damage and much better than the standard first item nashor's/gunblade build.

Jarring6/20/2019, 4:50:45 AM1 votes

Actually recommended this build to Phy months ago when he made a Kai'Sa video using same old build they always had. I asked him "why don't more rageblade users pick up manamune? it's best on-hit item in the game" a day later, he makes a youtube about a "KOREAN manamune Kai'Sa build". Lol. maybe just a coincidence. But I was originally talking about using the combo on Kayle, and a month later, he made a youtube about the "KOREAN manamune Kayle build" ... whatevs.

Anyways, what I was gonna say initially was that I recommended the build to a popular streamer(who said he tried already, but uses the same Nashor's second core item Phy suggested. Don't think Nashor's is a core item at all for this build. Especially concerning manamune and guinsoo's. Manamune and Guinsoo's are core items, not Nashor's. it's only picked it up cuz it has AS and cdr. 80 AP in 3 core item build is negligible. When I recommended Iceborn Gauntlet as a great alternative item he pretty much made fun of me saying he wants to get "damage" as if Nashor's gives relevant damage at that point. Main argument seemed to be that Kayle's base damage isn't high enough for the sheen proc to be relevant.

Well, I get that, but not only do you get an extra 10 AD that manamune converted IBG's mana into ... but you get another 30 on-hit dmg(upgraded muramana passive) from having 500 more max mana added to your pool. So it does add plenty of damage, regardless of whether or not you take into account its sheen proc, gives you 65 Armor(which is amazing for such a cheap item that is also adding plenty of damage), AND gives 20%cdr which owns for Kayle. Also, the way Kayle's E works, the sheen will proc twice on surrounding units, effectively doing more damage to surrounding units every time because of the way its worded. Your first sheen proc is spread in the aoe of E, then you get another sheen proc on surrounding units(that does not effect the main target). If the E wasn't an aoe or if the aoe portion of E was only the execute damage, rather than both the auto attack and the execute damage, it would work normally, but because of the way IBG is worded and how Kayle's E aoe works, surrounding units get hit by the sheen proc twice. That's just the cherry on top. It's already an incredibly cheap item with no drawbacks other than having no attack speed. If I went Manamune > IBG > Rageblade .. my next item would be Runaan's for AS and then I'd top it off with ER. I think it's necessary to get Runaan's at least by the 4th item. Just my personal opinion for Kayle to get his 2nd attack speed item second to last item into the build. I also think berserker's greaves are optimal here.. having the early res/armor boots help a lot especially early/mid game, but the AS on the greaves pays off tremendously by the time you finish your core, and even more so when you're full build. Maybe not as much if you weren't Lethal Tempo though, so if you went PTA or something else, there's definitely more options for boots.. Just the pay of for having serker greaves with Lethal Tempo is too great to ignore. Like, you'd sit around 2 A/S attacks per seconds before attacking anything, and hit over 3 A/S 1.5 seconds into the fight just with the 2 AS items and serkers. Also don't even get alacrity, bloodlines is better to have in the grand scheme of things along with Ravenous Hunter. with just those 2 runes, if you're attacking, you ain't dying cuz you do an absurd amount of damage physical magical and true. and shit just melts.

I did a custom game test where I played against 5 intermediate bots completely solo using this build, and they didn't stand a chance in hell. Every single item made it more and more difficult for them to do anything, until I could just facetank the 5 of them wiping them no sweat. I know it's not a good example, just saying... IDK if that'd be possible on other pussywhipped Kayle builds using Nashor's and Gunblade. I mean maybe they could still win of course idk I haven't tried it, but I know for sure it'd be a lot more difficult. Basically was just like playing an intermediate bot game by yourself, without anyone else on your team in other lanes or anything. All it is, just had to make a custom game to do it.

Main reason I'm advocating this build so hard is that I invented this from the ground up on my own. From the Muramana Guinsoo combo that Phy eventually credited to Koreans(I don't blame him tbh even if I was the one who initially turned him on to it), to runepage optimization and IBG synergies/exploit and reasoning behind ER.

I want to see people pick this up, and start abusing this build path with better rune pages, so that Kayle can actually be the hard carry she was originally intended to be even if I don't like her design.

Maybe it will eventually tip the scales so that she'll require nerfs and consecutive buffs/reworks to her kit making her a better designed champion.

BrightWîngs6/20/2019, 11:48:38 AM1 votes

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/542879553262190597/583271049227927553/Screenshot_2019-05-29-14-30-08-947.jpeg

The reason I made this post because it has already been a thought with Riot and I'm trying to help the best I can as a Kayle player