THE FUTURE OF KAYLE

Ok now after the rework and chance to play her I have a few things to say about this beautiful Angel.

Preview:

Her early game is too weak. There are champions that can shit on her way too much. For big part of the laning phase she have to play defensive and only engage when she gets help from jung. This is the time when you can make her life miserable. So it's common to see her die 3-4 times during that time.

Around lvl 6 tho she gets a big farm boost with her passive (becoming splash damage) and with her ult she can't just die. If her lane is dead tho she always have the option to roam and help with her ult, slow, heal, MS boost. She will not deal a lot of damage tho (dependent on her skill choice). This is the time when she can get back from her bad early game and survive to lvl 11 at that time her 1st dmg item (Nashor's Tooth, Guinsoo's Rageblade or Hextech Gunblade) will be completed. This one damage item is not enough for late game, that's why she will be forced to buy another one (one of the other 2 that I mentioned). When that item is completed she will approach levels close to 16 when she will basically deal around 80-100 true dmg per attack. You don't want to overkill her damage build with a 3rd 4th or 5th damage item (like everyone does now). The only thing she needs is to survive long enough to continue hitting and deal that sweet true dmg. Soo you have to build 3 tank items and if the game is gross (over 40 min) she can always sell her boots for more tankiness. Soo why why tank items, not ap items? Well if your positioning sucks (around 95% of the people) you will die and lose the game because of that) that's why she is alwas 0/10/0 when is in your team, right? (give a little joke here) Don't pick her in jungle tho, she is a nice farm champion, but you let your laners to the enemy jungler way too much to be worth the gamble.

This is her state after her release to this day. Ok no one knows yet for her tank build though, it will become popular after the nerfs.

Now I will let myself to predict what will happen to her. Everyone will complain that her damage is too high. Soo Riot will do the obvious. They will nerf her damage. The problem is that her passive is stacking way too much!

Passive Explained: Level 1 to 5 Attack Speed 6% per atack up to 30% then becomes Exalted and have 15% Movement speed towards Enemy Champions. So basically she has tier 1 boots and nice 2 daggers if she hits 5 times. Doesn't sound like very much early game (because she is a melee). At level 6 the same passive becomes way too powerful only for clearing minions! not fighting. You need a lot of prep work (hit 5 times) to start go in for the kill and if this day comes you will get 10 magic damage + 0.2 AP and +0.1 tatal AD to your attacks (if E is at level 1 or 0). The fire wave is based on her E passive. If you don't level up E you will get level 1 E damage as fire wave when you get level 6. (example for skill choice: 3times Q, 2 times W, 0 times E, 1 time Ultimate) When you level up E one time, the fire wave damage stay the same, after that she will get +5 base damage to her fire wave per leveled up E. This is just for the fire wave. The Passive from E is stacked with the damage of the Fire wave so basically you hit her 2 times with the same damage. (if it's leveled up at least 1 time) 1 hit for the melee attack and 1 for the fire wave. (try and test in practice tool at lvl 6 with 3q 1w 1e 1r with every exaltad attack she hit her passive E damage twice) The damage is a lot especially late game when you have 400 AP (if you go stupidly for rabadon) = 80+30 flat + 10-15 from the total AD (120-125) and then the fire wave becomes true damage at level 16. This mean when you attack with the ranged attack and you will deal: -around 125 true damage -around 125 magic damage -your total AD -and whatever onhit effect you have on your items -oh and rune damage as well

This is every attack! Insane right. And to top it off when the champion is at 30% HP (not tank champs tho) just activate E and execute them.

I don't think this was the vision Riot imagined (or I'm wrong?). First to be clear: A lot of champions can deal this 400-500 damage and with crit even more, but you can counter it with armor and magic resists. Kayle deal the same damage spread over the 3 damage types in the game: Attack Damage, Magic Damage, True Damage. You can't get resistens for all of them. So it have to be "balanced" But how? The easy way is to nerf the AP ratio on her passive. (fire vave and E) Changing one hits both. This will lead to Crit Kayle rising up. Then Riot will nerf the total AD damage to maybe bonus AD damage or just lower it outright (on her E passive). Also her fire wave crits can be removed. Does fire wave crit when in lvl 16 (dealing double true damage??????) O YEAH IT DOES!!!! ("NERF NERF NERF THIS S*IT!" shouts from the crowd) Then she will start to be build tanky (like I said above). Then she will be nerfed again for her "tankiness". I will not start the topic about her healing abilities (runes, W ,alike) with spirit visage.

Then she will DIE and NEVER will be picked again!

I don't want this to happen to my Angel Kayle, RIOT what about You?

Buff her? Hah I saw the same thing with Akali this winter. How many people cried for her? Millions People like Professor Akali even wanted the reworked to never had happened at one point.

My opinion is to lower the rate she stacks up her passives late game. How exactly? When she auto atack she proc her E passive but (it's bound to her melee/ranged attacks) Her Fire Wave is like a splash but it deals the same amount of damage and even more at level 16+.

WARNING: You don't want to remove the E passive damage because she will be tragic in early game lvl 1-5. At this state she is weak, I don't want to imagine what will happened if that damage leaves her. You will have to give her range at level 6 not 11 and this is old Kayle not good idea and the fire wave damage to become available at lvl 11. (you will cut the farming out of her from level 6-11 with it) At the same note Her passive is COOL it feels like a new champion. High risk early game, in struggle to survive, becoming late game GOD (I guess this was the vision about her) With Reworked Kayle you have to learn her all over again, this is PERFECT for players. It keeps the game fresh not only for the new player but for the old ones as well. (Note: If she has her range at level 6 she will be a lot safer champion and a lot harder to kill. It's a long discussion to think the possibilities for her gameplay with that kind of passive. One is clear: she will be a lot safer champion, but her kit is not meant for that kind of champion. She will be a problem like Azir to scratch our heads "how to balance "this"?") heck, Kayle becomes ADC (lvl 6 is ranged and unkillable) just madness.

I want to see the passive remain the same (level 1- 6-11-16) but we need to nerf how she stacks them up in late game. This is where the game design is really important. Some stuff you can't do at surtain engine. Riot guys, you decide.

This is what I think about her:

People don't know how to play her yet. We need to keep this in mind when we nerf her ratios. Way too big of a hit and players will not be interested to play her at the other hand if she is not nerfed properly she will remain unbalanced.

Her Q: The problem is: people just don't want to max it first. (I imagine riot wanted us to do so, the splash damage is helping with early game too, but at the same time they wanted to synergies it with her late game (skillshot that makes kayle able to kite his enemies while attacking) not point and click like old Kayle. That's why the Q is this strange skillshot right now. I'm already used to it tho.

How to make people want to max it first? You can make it happened with buff to her base damage at lvl 1-3 and nerf it at 4-5. This will be accompany with a reduction to her % AP ratio ass well. The second is to make it more spamable (lower the CD early on) but her % AP ratio need to get a big hit maybe 2 times than the 1st option (we don't want an ap mage kayle in mid lane, spaming Q and not auto attacking) (it's about the vision that the team behind the rework had) 3rd option: If her E get a big hit her Q will be maxed first and then based on gameplay you can tune her Q. (Just wait and see what will happen)

Her E (active) is used to waveclear the minions just after 1-2 auto attacks. Is it ok to execute the minions from half hp? Execute a 30% hp champions as well. After the nerf of her E passive damage they will want to spam it even more. So... What I'm talking about?

1st the passive portion. The base damage gives you a free Wit's End at rank 5 (30 flat magic damage on hit). Maybe lowering it is a good idea but it's not, if we cut the AP ratio as well. Now is 20% AP and it's too much, cut it in half is a good start. Let's make people stop spamming AP items on her if you didn't get why I'm talking about nerfing AP ratios.

Now let's see the Active Portion. E deals way to much damage from 10% to 20% missing heath at max rank Lower the base damage at later ranks is a good idea. 10%-15% for example. We don't want to hit her early game tho that's why it starts at 10% and finish at 15%. It will help a little but with both nerfs maybe it will be too much.

The second option is to lower her cooldown (now is capped at 8 sec. for all ranks) How to do that? Make her E deal more damage with high cooldown for example lvl 1 at 15 sec CD and 15% missing heath as magic damage to lvl 5 at 5 sec CD and 5% missing heath as magic damage. This will make it more like an auto attack reset not like execute but sure it can be used as both. Also her early game will be buffed. It will help to waveclear too if maxed first. If it's too strong then the simple nerf will be to not get effects from cdr items.

This change will hit the sweet spot allowing the player to choose how they want to play her laning phase.

Her ult don't need changes at the moment If the nerfs on her Q nad E are done. Changing the cooldown on later ranks is an option but is way way too early to touch it. Let people play with her ult a lot more before touching it. Most people don't know how to use it even if you tell them in the face how.

Verdict: She is realy weak early so you can punish her, and close the game before she get's "BIG". That's the main thing about her rework after all. But her main problem is the passive and the stacking damage with E passive. Overall I like her a lot. She need to be played more, so players understaind how to play with her and against her.Let's don't make pass mistakes whink Akali Fine job with Her desing Riot, Keep the good work.

Sorry for my English I was in a hurry before going to work so it's a mess. Edit: I'm not a native English speaker. Edit 2: I think this counts as a Gameplay discussion? So I will put it here.