Kayle - Toggle E proposal to riot

Korkalus·Jul 30, 2014·2 votes·1,035 views

Well, I have been playing Kayle for a while since I bought aether wing and I have been having troubles adapting to her weird AA range.

Kayle clearly seems to be balanced around beign ranged and you don't even use your AA unless you have your E up. Maybe she was originally thought to be dancing around your both stances, melee and ranged, but nowadays she only uses her auto when she is in ranged mode. Aside this, playing as kayle is pretty weird when you are about to last hit a minion and suddendly you get in melee and have to wait 6 secs to go again in ranged mode, because unless you are REALLY bulliying your opponent you won't get in melee, and that's only if you are AD kayle.

I have found a post created 3 years ago with the same proposal as mine with a Riot reply. He basicaly explains that is not possible to toggle E because it's visually loud and because in become in mana problems for Kayle. I have to say that I rarely see a Kayle autoattacking without her E activated, so I think loudy visuals are not a real problem, and about mana issues they can always balance mana numbers to make it viable. In adittion to the advantages that this change could give to Kayle players, this would define her even more as a short ranged champion, and probably Riot could make better balances to her.

There is the old post link I've mentioned:

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=625672

16 Comments

WorgslargJul 30, 20143 votes

IMO, if this were implemented, her auto's with e up would need a mana cost per attack, like jinx's rockets. 3/4/5/7/9 mana per auto sounds reasonable to me, but I am by no means a game balancer.

With 40% cdr( Athenes and nashors) you can reach 100% uptime.

MrBuffingtonJul 30, 20141 votes

I was going to say the same thing, they would need to cost mana per auto (though I would suggest more mana since at 3-9 she can regenerate as fast as she autos with athenes and never be oom).

Alternate build: item 3115 item 3158 and 5 from offensive masteries = 40%CDR

WorgslargJul 30, 20141 votes

I find that the mana regen is needed anytime i'm playing kayle so i go sorcs and athenes.

MrBuffingtonJul 30, 20141 votes

I guess if you get attack speed masteries instead of CDR masteries that would work; it's a good build, I was just offering an alternative way to reach 40% CDR

KorkalusJul 31, 20142 votes

I know that with CDR you can have 100% uptime, and you don't need 40% just 35% to have your E uptime forever. What I'm talking about is about how odd is this is skill while you are at lane phase, needing to wait 6 full seconds untill you have your E up again.

MrBuffingtonJul 31, 20141 votes

It's kind of like Kog'Maw's W in a way. I mean, E will naturally push your wave, so having a bit of downtime lets the wave not get permanently pushed. Thanks for the tip about 35% CDR

KorkalusJul 31, 20141 votes

That's why this is about a toggle skill and not about a change to her autoattack range, if you want stop pushing your lane you can always toggle off.

And Kog'maw is not really a good comparison because even when his W is in downtime, he still is a ranged champion, while Kayle is balanced around being ranged and suddendly becomes in a mele champion for a few seconds, where all she can do is cast her Q.

MrBuffingtonJul 31, 20141 votes

The point of having a cooldown though is to give her kit some counterplay. I made the comparison with Kog'Maw because there are times where Kog'Maw is vulnerable; because he's such a short range ADC without his W, the cooldown gives clear times when Kog'Maw is powerful and when he's more vulnerable.

The thing about Kayle, and toggle skills in general, is that there has to be some trade off to using them. For Ashe, she's just wasting mana if she keeps her Q on. For Jinx, she's losing a lot of mana per shot and also losing a lot of attack speed. For these two, they need their mana for other skills; most of Kayle's mana is going to go to keeping her E up anyways, she already has a good amount of her mana pool allotted to using her E, where as Jinx and Ashe want to save mana to use their other spells. Kayle only really uses her slow and heal situationally, most of her mana is dedicated to keeping her E up. She's not wasting mana on this spell because she's supposed to use mana on this spell, where Jinx and Ashe only use their toggle situationally.

Think of it this way, if Kayle's E was toggle, when would she not have it on? One of the reasons Kayle is such a great late game champion is because at that point she has all the CDR she needs to keep her E up all the time. Ashe and Jinx hardly ever use their Q to farm, where Kayle uses her E for everything. There is absolutely no benefit to her using her melee attacks, since she's not really even 'saving' mana for anything since her mana is supposed to be used on E anyways.

KorkalusJul 31, 20141 votes

Nice reasoning! I have to say that I really like your reply.

Maybe you have reason and it's not possible in her current kit, but I would like to know they have at least tested it first. Probably in the case they do a change like that they will be forced to do somekind of remake.

Anyway, I still think that she doesn't have any real "weak" moments when you can attack her because if she doesn't have her E she just play defensively and wait to have her E again, so is more a question of "can I reach her?" than windows of real weakness.

Maybe Kayle deserves a minor rework sooner than later.

Thanks for your interesting reply :D

MrBuffingtonJul 31, 20141 votes

Thank you :D

I agree that her 'weakness' isn't that much of a weakness. I get the feeling Riot is still figuring out what to do with Kayle (new patch just released and she already got some more changes on PBE, minor buffs I think). You might be right about the rework, it's unfortunate that Sion and friends keep getting pushed back, lol. I think Riot is still resisting the rework, since there are so many other priorities they want to get to, so I think they're trying to see if they can make Kayle healthy for the game without having to change her kit too much. I'm sure they don't want to gut her until a future date when they can rework her. I really don't know.

KorkalusJul 31, 20141 votes

Of course if it is a toggle skill it should need a mana cost per auto, and I personally prefer that way

Serpents EmbraceJul 30, 20141 votes

The gap between her duration and cooldown are meant to be a moment of weakness that her enemies can exploit.

It's kind of her only one at the moment. It's a huge problem that she only has the one window, and is one of the reason she's getting nerfs.

A toggle would nullify that problem, and without substantial changes to the rest of her kit, wouldn't really fix anything about her current issues.

Knight SoIaire Jul 30, 20141 votes

they didnt ballance the cd and duration of the skill and gutted her instead

seems legit

Serpents EmbraceJul 30, 20141 votes

Probably because she had way too much DPS and utility and they had to take one? Would you rather no longer get her ultimate up half as much? Or maybe remove the speed but or heal from her W? Maybe take away her slow?

She was just too good at too many things, and could do them from several roles on the map. Sorry you didn't like this solution but this is League so it isn't even a permanent one.

KorkalusJul 31, 20141 votes

Yep, before nerfs she was completely overwhelming her opponents so those nerf was well deserved.

I have allways thought her speed boost in her heal is the main point of it, so I wouldn't be afraid if they cut her heal o transform it into a somekind of out-combat heal, as could be a simple regeneration boost.

KorkalusJul 31, 20141 votes

But that weakness doesn't really exist, I mean if you don't have your E up you just wait untill you have it again. Maybe is just me, but I never have seen a Kayle going melee.

I think that a toggle skill could patch some of her current problems because she could be better balanced around having her E all time up, but yep maybe is not a real fix