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@Riot Possible rework to Kalista?

PrinceArchie··7 votes·1,025 views

Part of the reason why many dont play Kalista currently is that she doesnt feel powerful to play; and I think that alot of the buzz words thrown around to describe what she brings only makes it harder to take a closer look at her real issue. "Teamfighter", "Objective control", "Mid game power spike champion". Stuff like this you'll commonly hear to try and and make legitimate her current state. Even going as far as to prescribe the champion for certain elos only (well only one being challenger). There's a stark contrast between how much impact you have on the game with this champion before and after the nerfs and I feel it's because shes stuck between trying to be the perfect teamfighting ADC and the ultimate skirmish ADC.

With her unique passive, the way she auto attacks is unlike any other adc. It just isnt the same and this alone provides a fairly unique and memorable experience for anyone who plays against or plays Kalista. It's what I believe makes her E-Rend even possible to execute in fights. Typically attack moving on ADC's is much slower, but being that attack speed affects her ability to move as well as attack faster this makes attacking while on the move seamless and honestly a fantasy. What ruins this Fantasy is what has been forcibly altered due to it giving her so much power. Her old W passive and her ultimate.

Both were heavily nerfed and the effects were massive. You cannot be alone at all on this ADC, you cannot 1v1 even in lane. Your ability to do anything autonomously is ridiculously inhibited. for two abilities/effects that serve no other purpose than to forcibly have you make plays with your support. Kits in other ADC's do not suffer from this and as a result, their performance wont be more directly tied to the skill and success of their support. An Ashe or a Jhin for example can still make plays solo in a side lane or when being faced in a grim scenario of a 2v1. A kalista is just massively weakened and left to die. Before the nerf this was not the case and if ahead you could easily 1v4 given you were adept at the champion.

I think people want this fantasy, the ability to seamlessly attack move on a champion that moves at YOUR rhythm, with abilities that CAN work well with teammates, but arent forced upon you to utilize them in such a manner, even worse be in a set proximity to unlock your full potential.

**TL : DR- Would you consider removing her current ultimate and W entirely for something more applicable to regaining the seamless attack moving experience? (I.e things to better self peel and help you kite yourself rather than forcing it on your support and being at the mercy of their skill?) **

8 Comments

PrinceArchie2 votes

Further update for new readers

https://www.champion.gg/champion/Kalista

http://na.op.gg/champion/kalista/statistics/adc

I would like to discuss Kalista in terms of her power spiking for a moment. In other words to entertain those who would have you believe that she is strong at a particular point. Kalista for the longest time has been considered a early lane bully and a mid game champion, who spikes hard with 3 items. IT is in this time where you should be looking to capitalize on your power. However compared to champions such as Ashe Jhin Sivir Kalistas chances to win within the 25 minute mark in Plat+ elo is a whooping 41% only to climax to 58% around 35-40 min. All ADC's mentioned beforehand have a win rate over 55% within the first 30 minutes of the game, yet only one can honestly be considered a somewhat lane dominant champ that being Jhin . Historically both Ashe and Sivir have been safe early game picks the slowly scale up. Key word here slowly , they do not spike hard with thier item builds/paths. In fact Sivir doesnt become a real damage threat until she gets quite a few crit items to suppliment her modest AD and Ahse usually really becomes a problem when she completes 2 AD items a crit item and LW.

So pretty much around the 4-5 item mark is when these two really start to look like legitimate carries to rally behind in terms of damage. So why is it a champ like Kalista no longer sees dominance in the early to mid game. Neither of the two mentioned before are really menacing in lane, especially before level 6, the potential for an all in isnt all too great. Well it might have to do with the fact that Kalistas W was the only thing making her a lane bully to begin with? With no potent mechanic to trade with, due to the fact that both her W passive and Rend were nerfed (rend receiving mana refund nerfs a while back), she's literately forced to farm against all but the most passive of ADC Ezreal in which is her only matchup that has a greater than 50% winrate against. Isnt it odd though that a mid game focsued AD doesnt have a strong early game? Well not necessarily, KogMaw hits a massive power spike in the mid game with both runnans and rageblade, so his farming is justified, yet Kalista comes no where close. Kog maw btw tops the damage charts of all ADC's by far, as being the single ADC with the highest damage potential in the game.

So where does Kalista's power exactly lie? According to the graph she has at best a 58% chance of winning around 35 minutes, which is interestingly where all the other ADC's fall too, even late game ones, despite them being late game. Why is that? Probably because unless you're playing at the absolute highest level, the concept of closing out a game cleanly isnt something very common. A kalista ult 35-40 minutes into the game that leads into an ACE can win the game given certain objectives are up and towers are down. But that could be said for anyone of the other ADCS, an Ashe arrow can pick off a high profile target or even stun multiple targets and end in the same result. So Late game is the definition of any mans game. therefore it's rather irrelevant to even consider this a power spike for Kalista being as it's a condition centered around the play of everyone as a whole, the high roller stakes of late game and not the strength of the champion. These other champions still hold a near 50% win rate at this same time, so it's literately a toss up, with them in the advantage due to the natural scaling of champions/items. Just thought I would bring this up as I found it interesting that no matter what angle you try to take Kalista has NO CLEAR WIN CONDITION. Unless you want to argue that all Kalistas should play for the Fates Call play between 35-40 mintues to win the game.

Which is probably why many consider her weak. So what do you guys think? Is the argument that Kalista can be won at the highest possible level even valid, considering the circumstances and reality of the champion in a majority of the games she is played? How can we compare Dynamic Queue and Competetive in a fair enough scope that gives both participants a clear win condition to this champion? Does one even currently exist? Personally I beleive one does not exist, and this is the reason Kalista is in the state she is in. She's been stripped of her ability to win by virtue of her strengths and has been relegated to augment the strengths of others. AD support anyone?

Chess11 votes

She will never be balanced with that passive its just to powerful to reposition yourself at every single attack instanly and not moving like other ad carrys. not to mention the hurrican interaction is just to damn good.

PrinceArchie1 votes

No it isnt and it is affected by forms of soft as well as hard CC. ITems that are currently popular and meta to build such as item 3116 item 3143 item 3110 . There are actual mechanics built into the game to counter it. Is there a counter to Ezreal E? How about a counter to Zed W? The ability is unique to the champion just like many others, that isnt grounds to remove that in order to make it a more generic carry that you can add to the list. The champion can be balanced but the fact that it has a multipurpose malphite ult for both engages and escapes doesn't help keep such a unique trait from being over toned. She just has a lot of powerful tools to work with that have ultimately been made mediocre to keep her contained.

TurquoiseYoshi1 votes

Many pros consider Kalista a utility ADC rather than a mobility ADC or a hypercarry. I think that's one of the most crucial things. The champion whose core kit element is hyper-mobility is considered a utility champion. So yes, I agree that her ult and W need changes.

PrinceArchie1 votes

Yes many pros do consider her utility but only because her damage was gutted, if it wasnt she wouldnt be considered a utility. Kalista is built as a mid game carry, she just has a single ability that aids in utility, being Fates Call. Riot also continued to support the notion of her being a "utility" ADC by allowing her rend to stack infinitely on monsters. She isnt a utility AD carry is the thing, There are other ADC's who can do what she does and better. The crazy thing is her actual passive COUNTERS many of the popular ADCS we have been seeing dominate the bot lane presently. Ezreal Lucian Sivir even Jhin , she COULD chase them down, dodge their skillshots/linear spells and decimate them. She cannot anymore because the W passive was simply too much of a integrated trading tool in her kit for the laning phase. She went from being a lane bully to an ADC that is in literal limbo.

The Last Ballad1 votes

Did you forget about the free moving wards that she has, which allows her to tell if someone is in the enemy jungle by them being seen or them destroying it?

PrinceArchie1 votes

No I didnt and you know what, it's useless and doesnt belong in her kit. Free moving wards, are you serious, how can you compare an actual ward of any sort to the vision a sentinel provides? It's just another prime example of Riot trying to overload a champions kit with fluff that adds no value to it's primary strength; thus people like you take it as a crutch to justify ill-begotten nerfs and an acceptance of the current state in which what is now the worst ADC with no purpose on the rift by far. You wanna play petty? Lets play petty. Ashe E accomplishes the same thing and is cross map. You can scout the entire blue and red side of the enemy team's jungle in a matter of seconds if you aim it right. Does this contribute in any sort of way to the CC, slow focused ADC? But her kit isnt overloaded with tons of damage, cc and utility right? Not really aside from the fact that it's a useful tool to scout potential in coming ganks for an immobile carry, can even see what an enemy team is doing in base and explodes to a radius much larger than your typical ward....

This does what the sentinel does but 100X better, granting vision of entire quadrants, which can give you information on buffs, jungle monsters and more than one enemy champion and even trinket/pink wards. Kalistas sentinel's vision is extremely narrow, you can actually kill it, thus negating any vision you really get from it, you can literately walk around/behind it, and it usually only grants vision of a specific target.

How on earth is Kalistas sentinel even useful? It's not really, you'd have to be an idiot or just not care in general if you were caught by the thing. It even gives 10 gold to the killer. Furthermore it was needlessly nerfed, instead of making 7 rotations is makes 3. It was hardly relevant before it's even more irrelevant now. Might as well not even have a W active on her.

PrinceArchie1 votes

Oh more food for thought. For those who keep wanting to believe Kalista was the most picked/dominant ADC entering Season 6 through her nerfs, Riot intentionally started shifiting power to other ADCs during the off season through their project known as the ADC rework. During this time, between patches 6.1 and up until Kalistas and corkis nerfs 6.6; Corki, Ezreal and Lucian were dominating the rift. Lucian and Ezreal specifically both almost reaching a damn near 50% pick rate, while both Ezreal and corki maintaining around a 52% win rate (lucian hoering just below 50%). Kalista peaked at a 16% pick rate in patch 6.3 and furthermore had a pretty consistent 52% win rate. So if logic speaks to anything this clearly states that Kalista was not the most dominant ADC in soloqueue at all infact she wasnt even the most popular. The success she saw in LCS used as the basis for her nerfs and are in my opinion over the top when you look at the context of reality and what came to be after the fact.

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