Kalista's Kit and a Possible Terrible/Great Idea

Warning: Wall of Text. This started out as a response to a different thread but I got carried away and came up with this idea while typing.

Let me start off by saying I don't play too much Kalista but I do feel I know her strengths and weaknesses. I'll address two complaints that have been thrown around the boards before I address the real issue.

The first "issue" is that she is more gated by her support than other markspeople. Kalista gains attack speed when next to her bonded ally as well as her reliability to deal that juicy % health damage when both support and her attack the same target. This is a good way to gate a decent amount of her upfront power. A lot of people don't like this reliance on someone else but it's a somewhat interesting mechanic and I'd personally like to see it stay as it adds more uniqueness to the marksman roster. If you want a marksman that can dash all over and duel people then you've got Vayne and Lucian.

Second, a pretty popular thread came up a while ago asking for an execute indicator to be added for Kalista's rend ability. Even though this is not a numerical increase in dps this would be an insane buff. Kalista's E is pretty hit-or-miss and it's balanced to be that way. As Kalista, you're always thinking "oh man can I rend now or do I need another 2-3 autos to make absolute certain". This adds to her skill; the ability to tell when to rip out all those stacked spears for an execute. If you pull too early then not only can you not use your main damage ability again for a good 8 seconds - you can't even start stacking your spears again for the rest of the time you're auto attacking. If you pull too late you still kill your opponent, yes, but you've wasted valuable time that could have been spent elsewhere - you've traded uncertainty for time, less damage potential to your opponents, and more damage potential towards yourself and your teammates. Adding an execute indicator takes away these important moments of uncertainty and adds nothing but raw power through saved time and the near-impossibility to screw up. There is simply nothing interesting or exciting about a "kill them now" button that Kalista would have. Anyone who is going to argue this point with "but Garen has an execute indicator!" can remember Garen is a juggernaught and not a marksman and that his execute is melee range, single-target, an ultimate, and only usable once per fight.

Now for the meat of the issue: Kalista's Passive. I'll only be covering the Martial Poise part of her passive here as I shortly addressed the Oathsworn bit above.

MARTIAL POISE: Kalista cannot cancel her basic attack wind-up except by selecting a new target within range, and her basic attacks miss if she loses sight of her target before they hit. Additionally, her basic attacks only deal 90% AD physical damage. If Kalista enters a movement command while winding her basic attack or right after using Pierce, she dashes a short distance in the target direction, scaling with her boots tier. While dashing, her basic attack wind-up is only reduced by 0.66% per 1% bonus attack speed compared to the standard 1 per 1.

Kalista's biggest issue is that she can invalidate most melee champions in the entire game by making sure they simply can not catch her while simultaneously dealing strong damage over time against them. Before Kalista was released people would all complain about mobility creep. After her release you know players were in a tizzy over the new super-mobile marksman and how this amount of mobility would not be healthy for the game. The issue becomes more clear when used in high level play as it always required a very coordinated team to kill her due to the incredible slipperiness her mobility provided. Kalista basically dictated which champions could and could not be played on the rift. When slows were allowed to affect her jump speed Ashe became her counter and was her lane opponent almost every professional game. Immobile top laners weren't viable against her. This extreme mobility dictated so much in the game and the resulting effects weren't fun for anyone and is the main reason why she is currently in the state that she is.

Attack speed is supposed to be the go-to stat on her considering her passive and attack speed scaling. Riot even said during the marksman update that "just as other marksfolk align with cooldown reduction or critical strike chance as a core stat, we're pushing Kalista to embrace attack speed as her primary scaling given her stand-out strengths as a bunny-hopping battle-banshee". Ignoring the argument regarding difficulty using her passive at high attack speeds is pretty challenging mechanically along with the fact that you cannot cancel your attack inputs the problem about building her with all that attack speed is that her jumps don't scale that well with attack speed (66% effectiveness) so you lose dps unless you are standing still; something long regarded as suicide for a marksman.

Crazy solution? Keep her jump and lack of aa canceling but double down on her attack speed when shes standing still. Let Kalista break the attack speed cap when she is standing still but lower her already low dps somewhat when she's out jumping around!

Now, you may be thinking this exact thing just happened to Kog'Maw, an admitted failure of a rework. Why would they reinstate such a high attack speed champion again? Well, here's a quote from Riot Axes on why Kog got reverted:

"His unique attack speed interactions undercut the core identity that we intended to reinforce. The items and masteries that scale best with his new direction provide early- and mid-game power rather than late-game power, warping his power curve. More importantly, the ability to move in between attacks is essential for him to serve as most of his team’s damage output. He needs to be able to keep up with a moving teamfight, or else his opponents simply avoid his range and his allies can’t rely on his damage output as the primary or potentially only major damage dealer on a team.” I'll also add here that Riot said they were willing to try out the 5.0 attack speed thing in the future but that it would likely come with some "major challenges to deal with".

Basically speaking, Kog was fine pre-rework and this change didn't actually solidify his character how they hoped. This was probably the biggest factor; Kog had a healthy and unique place in the marksman roster before his 5.22 rework. They also mention the problem with not being able to effectively move while attacking at these incredibly high attack speeds - Kalista can still jump and attack unlike kog so it would be less hit-or-miss in her case.

This change would give her the low dps kiter vs high dps immobile killer play style that players can work around and show their skill and decision making prowess of when to jump safely and when to throw spears at lightning speed. This low-risk/low-reward and a high-risk/high-reward split identity will be a unique one in the marksman roster and should be interesting to watch, to play as, and to play against.

I'm sure there are still some concerns so here are some reasons why this option could still work on Kalista compared to other champions.

1. Kalista hasn't had the amount of time that Kog had to completely solidify her identity and niche in the marksman lineup so a change like this wouldn't be as controversial to character as it was for him. Riot would have more opportunity to play around with this theme more and to change her kit in ways that would not be possible with Kog'Maw. Also, unlike Kog'Maw, Kalista does not have a healthy state she can or should be reverted back to; the only option is to keep tweaking her kit and divert power away from her mobility.

2. On hit effect builds are getting nerfed quite a bit with the removal of the current iteration of Fervor of Battle and the fact that botrk still only does 6% current health damage instead of the previous 8% it had when Kalista was at her strongest. Side note: If on hit builds were still a problem Riot are still more than capable of changing her so that on hits are less optimal. For example, they could change her so that only the single, most powerful on hit effect she has is applied per auto attack.

3. It's a possible way to keep the mobility of her passive. Many people say the only way to make Kalista fair is to remove the constant dashes she gets with every auto. She still keeps the ability to dash around a lot but simply won't be as effective at dealing damage unless she can find the time and positioning to stand still and let some spears fly.

4. This change would appeal to players who really enjoyed the incredibly high attack speed play style of pre-revert kog'maw.

5. Allowing Kalista to reach extreme attack speeds does not bring the inherent downside Kog'Maw had of being almost completely immobile. Kalista can still hop around opponents to not let a fight get too far away from her - thus avoiding the issue where "opponents simply avoid his range". Furthermore, the change also resolves the issue where "allies can’t rely on his damage output" because this damage isn't completely tied to an ability with a cooldown. Kog had all his power is built around his bio-arcane barrage and enemies could walk away when the ability was activated and re-engage right when it went on cooldown. Kalista would not have this problem as her passive has no cooldown and is therefore always available.

6. This change would remove the extreme power imbalance at high levels of play. Do you remember Deft kiting with a Kog'Maw at 5.0 attack speed and looking like he was gliding backwards and forwards? The top marksmen players could overcome Kog's intended weakness with their superior mechanical play. There's no need to worry about that because movement commands issue a non-cancelable jump from Kalista that reduces her dps. You have to choose when to jump and when to let loose. It's impossible to do both.

Riot would obviously need to change some numbers in Kalista's kit to make this work out so I'll add some examples of possible nerfs that could go along with this change to make sure she isn't too strong

Max attack speed cap is 4.0 instead of 5.0

Attack damage ratio on dash reduced to 85% from 90%

Attack speed on dash reduced to 60% from 66%

Cooldown on Q increased to 9

Ultimate cooldown changed from 120/90/60 to 120/100/80

Only the most damaging of on hit effects is applied to Kalista's auto attacks

Edit: Fixed a quote and a spelling error. Added an idea for limiting on hit effects and possible other changes Riot would likely need to examine to balance this kit.