Kalista's mechanics are kind of anti-fun to a majority of the champions currently

Axem Black··62 votes·6,012 views

I've played against Kalista, I've looked up her stats and her abilities, and I've tried to focus on what weaknesses you can expose in her because she does very well in a lot of my games. From what I understand she has really 2 counters/weaknesses. You have auto-target hard CC for her (which requires a small pool of specific champions and is probably why annie is so popular as support right now) or you try to time skill shots on her so that her inability to cancel an autoattack forces her to take it.

I feel there are two innate problems with these weaknesses. The first one forces you to play a limited of champions because anyone without hard cc and auto-target spells gets countered to the point of no counter-play. The second weakness of not being able to cancel attack animations almost makes it easier to dodge skill shots in my opinion. She can hop away as soon as she finished a skill shot making the window of opportunity very small, and if she notices you are starting to land a few shots due to predicting when she's going to last hit, she can start to fake you out easily since you are throwing your skill shots out earlier than normal due to the smaller window than most ADCs and are more likely to jump the gun when she fakes going in for a last hit. Another note about her inability to cancel an autoattack is that once she gets even one attack speed item, any window of opportunity is non-existant.

I feel like the small amount of weaknesses and counterplay with her are miniscule compared to the amount of strengths she has. In reality, she has no weaknesses that every other ADC doesn't have, but she has a lot of strengths that no other ADC can claim at all. She just seems to outshine unless you go out of your way to HARD counter her, and I feel as if that is exactly the definition of what others would say is anti-fun. I haven't talked about her auto attacks missing if you lose vision. Anyone who has tried to take advantage of this weakness, tell me how effective it was and if you were able to continue it or if it was countered quickly by wards or something.

Let me know if anyone else has any thoughts about counterplay with her and if her mechanics leave room for fun and creative counters or if it limits the game for you.

46 Comments

DotEleven17 votes

Her only "weakness" that I can see is that she can't burst. However given enough rend stacks, she can still do that, it's just delayed burst.

Blastermine13 votes

The real counter is to hit her with a skill shot at close range right after she jumps.

Leona is especially good at this.

TheI3igDaddy8 votes

I have a lot of respect for Leonas who can shield bash Kalista into oblivion.

A Superb Villain1 votes

You and I both.

GloriousKaiser3 votes

Ok so just CC her.

How is this different from any other ranged carry?

After Ezreal Arcane shifts After Lucian uses relentless pursuit After Corki Valkyries away

Difference is, that she's got 10 more jumps where that came from. So if you don't instaburst her, chances are she can escape and/or turn the fight back around into your face because 50 dashes per fight is fun.

Is Kalista magically squishier than the other carries?

VDc0zCqe0w1 votes

{quoted}

The real counter is to hit her with a skill shot at close range right after she jumps.

Leona is especially good at this.

Leona is garbage vs a fuckton of supports matchups tho

picking Leona into a Janna, Thresh, Morgana is suicide (and those 3 are played alot)

byr12 votes

just pick caitlin and auto her to death.

KomePrePongo1 votes

or Graves or Draven

lojician9 votes

Riot doesn't care about the fun of anyone but adc players. As long as enough adcs can beat her in lane and duel her they'll officially declare her to "have counterplay".

Kitten of Evil12 votes

Oh come on, we all know Riot cares about the fun of Lee Sin players too.

GloriousKaiser9 votes

No they care about their #LC$FLA$HYBIGPLAY$

Shaabanglyy1 votes

{quoted}

Riot doesn't care about the fun of anyone but adc players. As long as enough adcs can beat her in lane and duel her they'll officially declare her to "have counterplay".

Dumb.

Auryiel8 votes

From what I understand, Graves is really popular against her because his wide skillshots allow him to burst her down fast

However, it really is a shame that such a small champion pool is actually good against her

Riot talks a big game about how fun it is to be able to outplay your opponent and WHILE IT IS TRUE that you can outplay a Kalista, it is exceedingly unfun to play against because the outplay potential is in fact mostly in Kalista's hands. Riot's so hell bent on removing targeted abilities and CC because they have low counterplay, yet they completely fail to address the lack of counterplay Kalista's grossly inflated mobility has.

RogueWill7 votes

You forgot she is immune to slows. They still apply but since you hop instead of walking the slow have no impact whatsoever.

Robertsmash7 votes

Literally invalidates Trundle as a champion.

hobomann21 votes

also Olaf Yorick andGaren

BeerOfRoot48436 votes

It's a cool idea, but there needs to be an actual tradeoff, besides not being able to cancel auto attacks.

Captain Aishi1 votes

i find it funny that 'not being able to cancel autoattacks' is considered a tradeoff, considering how often you hear people say "i missed that kill because i cancelled that auto"

BeerOfRoot48431 votes

Yeah, it hardly counts as anything. Maybe you'll notice it the first few minutes of the game, I guess.

Quepha6 votes

targeted hard cc: riot's most hated abilities and also the only mechanic that counters mobile champions

FHMarshy4 votes

Personally, I think she has quite a bit of counter play in the early game when she doesn't have much attack speed.

Without attack speed, it's rather easy to poke her.

Riot nerfed her backward jumping range in the most recent patch, so she can't really kite back as easily as she could.

Two things that counters her quite a bit, I found, are summoner 3 and item 3110 /item 3143 . Both slows her attack speed, in which she relies to make her infinite jumps so if you take out the attack speed, she can barely kite anymore.

Most of the supports in the current meta have CC in one form or another. Annie, Leo, Janna, Nami, Sona, etc. all have abilities to affect Kalista's strength ~ :)

OblongOtter2 votes

Janna and Nami are extremely easy for Kalista to dodge.

VDc0zCqe0w1 votes

{quoted}

Janna and Nami are extremely easy for Kalista to dodge.

no?

well yeah Nami it's easy, but Janna is not at all, considering everything about her is point and click, and you won't use the nado to knockup Kalista in a teamfight

James Stone1 votes

{quoted}

no?

well yeah Nami it's easy, but Janna is not at all, considering everything about her is point and click, and you won't use the nado to knockup Kalista in a teamfight

So you can click her with your... W. A slow. Which Kalista is all but immune to. Or you can ulti. Which will get Kalista even further away from your team (unless you flash ult, but that was completely Kalista's fault for being out of range). Her non-point and click ult.

Do you even think about what you write before doing so?

VDc0zCqe0w1 votes

[{quoted}](name=James Stone,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=YhjYqWuH,comment-id=0001000000000000,timestamp=2015-03-03T20:15:59.475+0000)

So you can click her with your... W. A slow. Which Kalista is all but immune to. Or you can ulti. Which will get Kalista even further away from your team (unless you flash ult, but that was completely Kalista's fault for being out of range). Her non-point and click ult.

Do you even think about what you write before doing so?

lol?

i mean yeah you won't kill her, and you won't CC her...guess what...Janna doesn't do that anyways, she shields your ADC and gives him a crapton of free AD while dominating the teamfight

Janna doesn't give a damn about Kalista jumping around, she doesn't even care, her main focus is to keep her adc alive, so the fact that Kalista can outrun her is not important at all

Retillin3 votes

"kind of"?

1st HanarSpectre2 votes

You need something liek a Malphite to try and contain her. Because of his utl and attack speed slow.

Eldem2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Axem Black,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=YhjYqWuH,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-03-02T12:41:31.311+0000)

I've played against Kalista, I've looked up her stats and her abilities, and I've tried to focus on what weaknesses you can expose in her because she does very well in a lot of my games. From what I understand she has really 2 counters/weaknesses. You have auto-target hard CC for her (which requires a small pool of specific champions and is probably why annie is so popular as support right now) or you try to time skill shots on her so that her inability to cancel an autoattack forces her to take it.

I feel there are two innate problems with these weaknesses. The first one forces you to play a limited of champions because anyone without hard cc and auto-target spells gets countered to the point of no counter-play. The second weakness of not being able to cancel attack animations almost makes it easier to dodge skill shots in my opinion. She can hop away as soon as she finished a skill shot making the window of opportunity very small, and if she notices you are starting to land a few shots due to predicting when she's going to last hit, she can start to fake you out easily since you are throwing your skill shots out earlier than normal due to the smaller window than most ADCs and are more likely to jump the gun when she fakes going in for a last hit. Another note about her inability to cancel an autoattack is that once she gets even one attack speed item, any window of opportunity is non-existant.

I feel like the small amount of weaknesses and counterplay with her are miniscule compared to the amount of strengths she has. In reality, she has no weaknesses that every other ADC doesn't have, but she has a lot of strengths that no other ADC can claim at all. She just seems to outshine unless you go out of your way to HARD counter her, and I feel as if that is exactly the definition of what others would say is anti-fun. I haven't talked about her auto attacks missing if you lose vision. Anyone who has tried to take advantage of this weakness, tell me how effective it was and if you were able to continue it or if it was countered quickly by wards or something.

Let me know if anyone else has any thoughts about counterplay with her and if her mechanics leave room for fun and creative counters or if it limits the game for you.

Thats it I cant take the circle jerk of negativity on this board anymore. I mean god guys adapt, learn how to play against something and stop complaining about j4' zed, yas, vi, kallista, riot hurting your feeling etc.

Kallista is strong and fun to play against, I say this as a jungle main. And champions that can deal with her fine are, zed, vi, akali, fizz, naut, lissandra, annie, caitlyn, graves, rammuus, nasus, hec, noct, ori, malph, mao, leona, leblanc, cass, kat, poppy, shaco,

Maybe you shoukd stop running straight. Maybe at her through the enemy team, or abuse her short range with aoe. Or gasp change and adapt your playstyle.

What most of this boards complaining amounts to is, "riot champ x makes how i play more difficult, nerf now please unfair unfun."

Seriously do any of you actually enjoy playing against another champ, or only the select ones your champ pool stomps.

Guess what movement is tactical, league is a tactical game. Movement is good for the damn game

QueenAqua2 votes

A jungle main wouldn't understand what it is like to lane against a VERY mobile adc.. Your list included only one adc that does well agaisnt kalista and it is not a matter of changing play style. Due ot her high mobility, Janna was a top pick as a support with kalista until they nerfed Janna's passive ms bonus. The main problem with kalista players is all they have to do is build attack speed and they can kite you for days, esp with furor boots. The problem isn't counter-play. The real problem is that the high mobility support got nerfed, but the high mobility adc went untouched. Mobility isn't a bad thing. The problem is that she is really hard to counter-play and Riot took away the mobility of the support that actually stood a chance on catching that high attack speed kalista. I can honestly say i enjoy playing against certain champs, but it's hard to enjoy playing against a kalista who only has to build attack speed and then just keep hopping back.

Dandymann1 votes

I'd love to see a poppy, LB, shaco, or hecarim "beat" a kalista after laning

Duroxxigar1 votes

{quoted}

Thats it I cant take the circle jerk of negativity on this board anymore. I mean god guys adapt, learn how to play against something and stop complaining about j4' zed, yas, vi, kallista, riot hurting your feeling etc.

Kallista is strong and fun to play against, I say this as a jungle main. And champions that can deal with her fine are, zed, vi, akali, fizz, naut, lissandra, annie, caitlyn, graves, rammuus, nasus, hec, noct, ori, malph, mao, leona, leblanc, cass, kat, poppy, shaco,

Maybe you shoukd stop running straight. Maybe at her through the enemy team, or abuse her short range with aoe. Or gasp change and adapt your playstyle.

What most of this boards complaining amounts to is, "riot champ x makes how i play more difficult, nerf now please unfair unfun."

Seriously do any of you actually enjoy playing against another champ, or only the select ones your champ pool stomps.

Guess what movement is tactical, league is a tactical game. Movement is good for the damn game

AA range is 550. Pretty standard. Lucian's got nerfed cause of his mobility. But, we'll leave that alone. Cause you said she is short range.

Q range is 1150. Just 150 units shorter than Cait's Q. Still a fairly long range though. But, we'll leave that alone, cause you said she is short range.

W range is 5000 units and has a max hp % damage. To put that in perspective, it is 500 units smaller than Mandrop. Yeah, it just roams around and provides security. I believe the 5000 units is just the total amount traveled. It does a bunch of laps, i know that. But, we'll leave this safety feature alone cause you said she is short range.

E has a range similar to Twitch's Exponge I believe, but the main complaint about this is that she can out smite a smite.

Ult has a range of 1200 units. Which is only beat by Lucian and Miss Fortune (and of course Cait). But it's okay, she is short ranged.

Furry Erotica1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Abhor Deities,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=YhjYqWuH,comment-id=000b0002,timestamp=2015-03-03T20:31:01.822+0000)

AA range is 550. Pretty standard. Lucian's got nerfed cause of his mobility. But, we'll leave that alone. Cause you said she is short range.

Q range is 1150. Just 150 units shorter than Cait's Q. Still a fairly long range though. But, we'll leave that alone, cause you said she is short range.

W range is 5000 units and has a max hp % damage. To put that in perspective, it is 500 units smaller than Mandrop. Yeah, it just roams around and provides security. I believe the 5000 units is just the total amount traveled. It does a bunch of laps, i know that. But, we'll leave this safety feature alone cause you said she is short range.

E has a range similar to Twitch's Exponge I believe, but the main complaint about this is that she can out smite a smite.

Ult has a range of 1200 units. Which is only beat by Lucian and Miss Fortune (and of course Cait). But it's okay, she is short ranged.

Lucian's aa range got nerfed not only because of his mobilty, but because of the massive burst damage that comes paired with it. Kalista's only form of burst damage is Q-bunch of auto's-E. In short, not burst at all.

Q range is completely justifiable by how pathetic its damage is at early levels, how huge its mana cost is 3Q's early = no mana It also, unlike cait Q, only passes through minions if it kills them. It's great for waveclear, lategame, but really, the skill is borderline useless until you are settled in lane okay.

W is alright. The ghosts have a very small vision range and the enemies can actually see them and avoid them. It's the %health damage I would complain about, if I wanted, but it can only be procced every so often.

E is probably the best thing about her kit. It provides good damage for trades, secures last hits really well (For free, if done correctly) and even outdamages smite in many occasions. If anything had to get a nerf on her kit, it would have to be rend. Perhaps eliminate the slow, or cap the damage.

Her R, though it has a big range, has several drawbacks. 1: It deals no damage 2: It puts her support in danger if used offensively

The best counterplay to kalista is not counterplaying kalista. COUNTER HER SUPPORT!!!! Without her support, kalista has NO ULTIMATE and NO PASSIVE W DAMAGE. I can't count the number of times I lost as kalista simply because my support wasn't with me at crucial points in a game, or simply dead.

Attack speed slows help, too :3

Duroxxigar1 votes

{quoted}

Lucian's aa range got nerfed not only because of his mobilty, but because of the massive burst damage that comes paired with it. Kalista's only form of burst damage is Q-bunch of auto's-E. In short, not burst at all.

Q range is completely justifiable by how pathetic its damage is at early levels, how huge its mana cost is 3Q's early = no mana It also, unlike cait Q, only passes through minions if it kills them. It's great for waveclear, lategame, but really, the skill is borderline useless until you are settled in lane okay.

W is alright. The ghosts have a very small vision range and the enemies can actually see them and avoid them. It's the %health damage I would complain about, if I wanted, but it can only be procced every so often.

E is probably the best thing about her kit. It provides good damage for trades, secures last hits really well (For free, if done correctly) and even outdamages smite in many occasions. If anything had to get a nerf on her kit, it would have to be rend. Perhaps eliminate the slow, or cap the damage.

Her R, though it has a big range, has several drawbacks. 1: It deals no damage 2: It puts her support in danger if used offensively

The best counterplay to kalista is not counterplaying kalista. COUNTER HER SUPPORT!!!! Without her support, kalista has NO ULTIMATE and NO PASSIVE W DAMAGE. I can't count the number of times I lost as kalista simply because my support wasn't with me at crucial points in a game, or simply dead.

Attack speed slows help, too :3

I'm not even going to read this honestly...this is what we call a NECROED THREAD.

BastionKross1 votes

You could add a CD to her passive, so that she's not hopping with every auto attack above a certain attack speed.

Hellen Keller1 votes

I think an un-lowerable CD on Kalista's passive would be a fine nerf for her. If not, I feel like her spears that can slow show either do less damage, or just not slow. I played a game as Jinx against a Kalista - I had a Soraka support, and the Kalista's support had AFKed. I might suck, I might not - I still lost that lane. Her sheer mobility makes it close to impossible to land any real skill-shots, and my Q's autoattack uses mana. I was out of mana before I could really do much damage, simply because my skillshots were so hard to land. I don't mind strong/OP champions if there's a decent counter, but Kalista's counters are so select, it ruins any fun my team could've had. I'm not trying to complain, I'm just forwarding my experience playing against a Kalista.

mvargus1 votes

{quoted}

I think an un-lowerable CD on Kalista's passive would be a fine nerf for her. If not, I feel like her spears that can slow show either do less damage, or just not slow. I played a game as Jinx against a Kalista - I had a Soraka support, and the Kalista's support had AFKed. I might suck, I might not - I still lost that lane. Her sheer mobility makes it close to impossible to land any real skill-shots, and my Q's autoattack uses mana. I was out of mana before I could really do much damage, simply because my skillshots were so hard to land. I don't mind strong/OP champions if there's a decent counter, but Kalista's counters are so select, it ruins any fun my team could've had. I'm not trying to complain, I'm just forwarding my experience playing against a Kalista.

Jinx should not be using Fishbones to poke like that. Keep Jinx using her minigun and her auto-attacks don't drain her mana. It is a very hard lane (one that I don't enjoy myself), but its possible to work it.

The key is having a good jungler and if you can one with some CC. I play Sejuani jungle a lot and I've ganked Kalista ADCs. Its actually fun since most Kalista's expect to escape and if you can land a Q you can make her go splat really fast.

Hellen Keller1 votes

Getting a jungler's gank is good, if you can actually get the jungler to gank. If not, you're kind of screwed. I've never tried using my minigun AA against her, as I believe she has a longer range than Jinx does. (I believe her rockets should beat her AA range if they're leveled, not positive). Again, I could just be bad, so there's that.

mvargus1 votes

Kalista has 550 range so she does have a range advantage of 25 v. Fishbones. But if you are using minions as cover and she tries to dive you without killing your minions first you'll almost certainly be able to poke back. Her rockets are longer range. I think it goes 550/575/600/650/700 for the range increases as you level her Q, I know it tops out at 700.

And its not about being good/bad v Kalista. Its more being around her enough to learn how she moves. My first fight against her was a nightmare. Of course the person on Kalista was a diamond 2 playing with a team of level 7-14 smurfs. She basically pushed me under my turret and killed me at will. Later matches against less skilled opponents have been a lot more even.

I won't say I like "Miss Hippity-Hop" as an opponent. Its frustrating to fight her. But she's not unstoppable, just requires that you really watch your positioning and make sure you only trade when you have the advantage. Against her the goal is to leave laning phase equal rather than build the snowball on her lovely corpse. :P

Siggy Kewts1 votes

Kalista isn't so bad during the laning phase. Still a bit annoying for skill shot champs, but nothing unbearable. Also still relatively gankable when out of position, depending on the support matchup.

After she gets AS though (particularly Runaans), her kit becomes toxic. The core build for Kalista right now (Runaans, BOTRK, Berserkers Greaves) gives her all the mobility she needs while giving her tons of damage. She doesn't even need AD persay until everyone starts to get beefier in the midgame. She invalidates many older champions who were left behind in the mobility creep.

IMO, her kit is just too overloaded. The combo of passive and her on-hit abilities with on-hit items and the sheer value of AS on her makes her feel like a more mobile Twitch. I find it extremely frustrating to play against her. Much moreso than other ADs right now.

ZerglingOne1 votes

Yeah they need to remove the smart-attack-move spam that lets anyone and their grandma kite like someone in Challenger.

frostywontons1 votes

Kalista's jump mechanic is mostly unfun for the bulk of bot lane opponents that must face her. You really do only have a select few champions that can reasonably lane against her and this does not even account for her laning partner, who undoubtedly will shore up her weaknesses. Graves is probably the best and only ADC able to comfortably face Kalista due to his high, quick burst and nearly foolproof aiming mechanic. Caitlyn is okay but I think Kalista has more counterplay opportunities against Caitlyn than vice-versa.

As far as supports go, Annie works well since she has a point-and-click stun and near instant burst. Less traditional supports like Pantheon, J4, or LB could also work but of course their longterm scaling as supports is questionable.

Silverclaw1 votes

Draven WRECKS Kalista.

xLegendary Troll1 votes

Vayne is really good against Kalista especially in a 1v1. The brief moments vayne goes into stealth greatly hinders her mobility allowing you to reposition for a stun.

Ltnkpyw2FZ1 votes

Kalista passive balance: 2-4s cooldown, perhaps scaled with level?

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