Any y’all play Kalista? I love the champ, but she just feels so weak when I play her. Do you have any tips for how I should play her? My build is usually: Vampiric -> berserkers -> Botrk -> Runaans -> Guinsoos -> bloodthirster -> gA/Mercurial.
Edit: Thank you! These responses are empowering me to bring retribution to the rift. <3
Kalista feels weak because she's supposed to be weak. Her design is not balanceable, and Riot has tuned her to rely heavily on her performance in coordinated play. Outside of that, she's really bad. They have stated that they've given up on tweaking her, Ryze, and Azir, because they don't see enough benefit in investing more time and effort into those champs at this point.
I have a few games on her, I am by no means a main of the champion. Your build is pretty standard for her and it is a good build, though a few things I think you can do, if you aren't already doing;
Attack/A Click, it allows you to auto attack a certain target and move, its good for using your jump easier while attacking, rather than clicking back and forth like I would, I'm not sure if it works exactly like that as I don't use it, though I know a lot of people use it.
Swapping Guinsoo's for IE, having the extra crit is good for Kalista, and I think the extra AD from IE is better for her, though that is just my opinion.
Using your E more, with the fact it resets off of minion kills, you should practice CSing with your E and also making sure you have a spear in your lane opponent while not drawing minion aggro. It can do some serious poke and it will add up after a while.
Using your Q with its run through, practicing throwing your Q through minions and getting used to which minions it will kill in order to spear it through minions and surprise your enemy. If you lower the minions yourself, getting spears in them already, it can transfer the spears on the targets it kills and apply the amount onto your target the spear stops in.
Otherwise, I'm not sure. Sorry if none of this helps, I really hope it does for you and good luck in your next games!
Well, I'm not really a fan of ADC's, but I think I can spot your problems right off the bat. Building BotRK as your first full item will contribute significantly less damage than almost any other ADC option. Keep in mind, BotRK is an item designed to help kill tanks, which is why it sacrifices raw AD for the % health damage. Against most champions in the botlane, this is a very poor tradeoff, and you should be focusing more on building damage that will be effective against squishier targets (like the opposing ADC).
Second, you shouldn't be building Guinsoo's Rageblade for any reason as Kalista. Half of the item gives you AP, which Kalista doesn't scale with at all. That means you waste a ton of money to get an item that does very little for you. Again, you want to invest into more traditional stats for an ADC, such as raw AD or perhaps attack speed and critical chance, as this will dramatically increase your overall damage.
Finally, if you are grabbing any item with critical chance, such as randuins, you really want to max out your critical chance. It tends to be something of an all or nothing stat, otherwise it is a lot less valuable.
believe it or not Kalista is actually getting a buff or two soon to her Q and her base AD, that might help some.
Instead of listening to people who don't play adc or specifically Kalista (ie: the guy who said not to build bork first and never buy rageblade... seriously what?) I'd highly recommend going to https://www.reddit.com/r/KalistaMains/ or the kalista mains discord and getting advice there. Your build is a very very standard kalista build. I'd suggest trying berserks > vampiric/cutlass though rather than vampiric > berserkers and see how you like it. You might also be good to get a GA before bloodthirster, but that's situational. Also I'd generally suggest shield over blade start for most adcs with a weak laning phase. Unless I'm confident I'm going to be stronger in lane, I'll start shield on kalista, vayne, kai'sa, etc. Blade is good if you're laning against similar scaling champs, but shield is usually better if you're against lucian, mf, draven, etc.
What runes are you running? How are you making use of your E and Q? Are you last hitting with E to get the reset or using Q to last hit and transer your stacked spears to whatever's behind your target? Are you making good use of your ult? It can be good engage or disengage if your support overextends Have you practiced wall hopping with your passive?
Also note that kalista is a hard champion to pick up. You're probably going to do poorly on her for a while, but once you get the hang of her play style, she's good.
