Possible Kalista Nerfs
is a hyper mobile ADC, possibly even the most mobile champion in League (Don't try to catch her unless you have point and click CC/kill abilities), as well as an ability that takes control away from a soulbound player(who is forced to be soulbound), and as such she has been largely a controversial champ since her release. When ahead, Kalista can become a very oppressive champion to fight against if melee (Udyr, Yasuo, Rammus, Ahri, etcetera), or even skillshot reliant, due to the fact that she can scale extremely well due to her AA range (550). If behind, Kalista can still pose a threat in the sense that she can give a variety of utility to her teammates(Knock-up with ultimate, THE BEST THRESH LANTERN NA, mobile wards, slow, objective control, percent health magic damage). Now, let's compare two other utility ADCs in the game.
is immobile, has no attack speed steroids, no stacking damage over time abilities, a near permanent slow, a skillshot stun ultimate, a poke ability, 600 AA range, and a scouting ability. Sounds about right for a utility based marksman, right? Now, let's look at Varus.
is immobile, has a poke ability, a moderate attack speed steroid on kills, a skillshot root that can spread to multiple targets in close proximity, a ground slow, and a percent health magic damage shred.
My question, why does Kalista have about the same utility as Ashe and Varus, yet is one of the most mobile champions in the game when the latter two are both immobile?
My proposition: Kalista needs some changes in order to balance her to be near the same level as the other utility marksmans that she competes with.
Possible changes may include:
- Attack speed loss: Kalista receives less efficiency from attack speed items (Like past 1 ->1.2 attack speed, she will start to be capped in terms of the amount of attack speed she gets, think of the 'movement speed' cap)
- Rend can no longer place more than 10-20 spears on large monsters (Pretty self-explanatory. Kalista shouldn't have such great objective control, such that she can outsmite her jungler)
- Kalista may not activate her ultimate should her soul bound be affected by hard CC abilities (Roots, stuns, knock-ups/backs)
- Upon being slowed, Kalista becomes fatigued and begins to jump for shorter distances with her passive until the slow ceases.
- Kalista has smaller dashes such that she covers less distance with each dash.
- The person that will be soulbound has a choice as to whether or not to accept the spear (Just make it so that, rather than being forced to just accept the spear to be bound, the other player has to click on the spear that appears on the ground to become bound to Kalista)
- Reduction of slow time/ slow amount of Rend.
- Rend no longer resets when it kills the opponent, or receives a reduced cooldown
- Rend no longer refunds as much mana if the opponent dies (20 mana -> 15 or 10 mana) (Think 'Irelia')
- Kalista's auto attack range is reduced to 500 (Think 'Lucian')
- Cap on number of rend stacks that can be placed onto an enemy champion (Think 'Twitch')
- Increased benefits for working together with soulbound, decreased timer on percent health shred cooldown, but also a decrease in the damage of the percent health damage. Proccing the mark on a target causes Kalista and her soulbound to both lodge spears into their target with each auto. Kalista receives decreased damage on targets that haven't been damaged by her and her soulbound (80-90% damage rather than the full 100%. This reduces her damage alone, and further emphasizes her role as a utility/team marksman)
- The mobile ward ability on Kalista no longer gives vision unless it targets an enemy champion (Makes sense, because if you kill the little creature, it's pretty obvious you're there, and if you don't, you'll be right on top of the enemy's minimap due to the creature spotting you)
Note These changes are all ideas, and are not meant to all be utilized if Kalista were to be changed.