@Meddler or Reav3 - Any considerations to fixing Kalista?

Oleandervine·Jul 3, 2016·33 votes·1,702 views

By fixing I mean replacing her skipee-doo-dah passive with something not so game breaking. Her kit is fun and 100% non-reliant on the passive. For the most part, her passive is what has broken her. Replacing it with something new or even just shifting the Soulbound passive on W to be her main passive, along with the spear, would go a long way in cutting out the worst part of her kit so you guys can actually balance her. I like her as a character, but I despise the fact that because of her passive, she has to remain at the bottom of the barrel out of fear of becoming a monster again.

38 Comments

L0ve Is BlueJul 3, 201616 votes

upvoted just because you used the term skipee-doo-dah passive

Valor BotJul 3, 20169 votes

Her passive is so central to her kit though. I remember reading a Rioter post somewhere that said she started out as a Champion who forced you to learn kiting, or something. The passive was an effort in that direction. Maybe if they removed the leap from her spear hurl (I think it's her Q)? That would take away some of the safety she offers while allowing her to keep her signature kiting ability and perhaps make room for buffs elsewhere.

OleandervineJul 3, 20165 votes

[{quoted}](name=Valor Bot,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=t8v2sQL1,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2016-07-03T21:33:55.567+0000)

Her passive is so central to her kit though. I remember reading a Rioter post somewhere that said she started out as a Champion who forced you to learn kiting, or something. The passive was an effort in that direction. Maybe if they removed the leap from her spear hurl (I think it's her Q)? That would take away some of the safety she offers while allowing her to keep her signature kiting ability and perhaps make room for buffs elsewhere.

I feel like it's only so central because that's what everyone has come to expect from her. At the bare bottom of it, Martial Poise is just a badly designed passive that's fairly impossible to balance around. Her spear and Soulbond mechanic is more iconic to her character and kit than the jump, and I believe that aspect should replace the jump. They could add the hop solely to her Q to leave her with some mobility, but on the whole, free attack based mobility with no cooldown is just bad for the game. Regardless of the fact they intended her to be a primary kiter, it's clear that they have failed at it. They need to come to terms with that failure so that her original design vision won't keep holding her back from being redesigned into something that is healthier for the game.

ArakadiaJul 3, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I feel like it's only so central because that's what everyone has come to expect from her. At the bare bottom of it, Martial Poise is just a badly designed passive that's fairly impossible to balance around. Her spear and Soulbond mechanic is more iconic to her character and kit than the jump, and I believe that aspect should replace the jump. They could add the hop solely to her Q to leave her with some mobility, but on the whole, free attack based mobility with no cooldown is just bad for the game. Regardless of the fact they intended her to be a primary kiter, it's clear that they have failed at it. They need to come to terms with that failure so that her original design vision won't keep holding her back from being redesigned into something that is healthier for the game.

The Q being the only jump would be pretty cool. Currently her Q isn't too useful except when you have no target. The jump for the Q would need a buff though.

The 2nd HorsemanJul 4, 20162 votes

Maybe make the q cooldown even scale with attack speed.

RozzetaJul 4, 20161 votes

It's rather ironic that she was developed as a champion that required you learning kiting, when on release the extra distance when jumping back made kiting obsenely easy.

MhihnjJul 4, 20161 votes

i would say Ezreal is better at teaching people to kite

MhihnjJul 4, 20161 votes

maybe decrease the leap range when under cc?

SpecterVonBarenJul 4, 20162 votes

Her theme is supposed to be about her and her soul bound yet the thing she's known for is hoping around, because CertainlyT never knows when to just stop adding stuff to a kit.

underscores222Jul 3, 20165 votes

I'm really torn about her. On the one hand, I really feel like her passive is a distinct part of her identity. On the other hand, I hate playing against her because of it.

I would be interested in looking into ways to adjust parts of her hop mechanics to make it a bit less annoying. She used to jump further when jumping backwards, making kiting easier. I don't remember if that part has been removed yet, but if it hasn't, that might be a good way to remove some power from the passive without ruining her completely. There might be other things that can be adjusted within the current mechanics that could make them a little more fair and open windows of opportunity to play around.

ErockandrollJul 3, 20162 votes

{quoted}

I'm really torn about her. On the one hand, I really feel like her passive is a distinct part of her identity. On the other hand, I hate playing against her because of it.

I would be interested in looking into ways to adjust parts of her hop mechanics to make it a bit less annoying. She used to jump further when jumping backwards, making kiting easier. I don't remember if that part has been removed yet, but if it hasn't, that might be a good way to remove some power from the passive without ruining her completely. There might be other things that can be adjusted within the current mechanics that could make them a little more fair and open windows of opportunity to play around.

It has, so her kiting isn't as good as it use to be.

I think the biggest issue with Kalista, is the fact that it scales ridiculously well with AS. And the rest of her kit is pretty well AS reliant. That why the turning point for her was in the ADC update, because they severely nerfed BotRK (Which kinda needed it actually) But then Runnan's got reworked to included Crit chance while reducing the AS. So their isn't the ridiculous about of kiting that she had, but the rest of her kit suffered as a result.

This kinda makes me wonder if Riot, really does not want to support any monstrous AS items. If her AS, or if AS itemization gets buffed, she'd be back in her former position. (likely requiring a passive nerf) or You could buff another aspect of her kit.

dapositivevikingJul 4, 20161 votes

you bring to light an interesring point that Kog'maw, the now attack speed oriented marksman, gets the majority of his attack speed in his kit and is aggressively immobile

Sire HippingtonJul 4, 20165 votes

I don't think it is possible to keep her passive in a healthy way without wattering it so far down that it's basically just cosmetics. The jump/dash after AA mechanic would have some potential on a melee scirmisher imo, as it couldn't be abused for kiteing, but on ranged champs, it's just not healthy.

ArthimetesJul 4, 20162 votes

I think it would be fine if they "removed" her passive but still made her skip when using Q only, that way she'd still have one single way to try to dodge instead of being borderline unhittable by skillshots.

SpecterVonBarenJul 4, 20161 votes

They could even make the q more powerful so that it doesn't feel so tacked on in her kit. Maybe make it so it's like Veigar's Q and have it pass half of its spear stacks to the next target instead of the more situational pass all stacks upon killing a target.

LuggJul 3, 20161 votes

Kalista has been severely broken since release. Needs a serious rework if she is ever to be balanced.

ArakadiaJul 3, 20161 votes

Maybe something like she can only hop with her Q, her attack speed is capped at 1.5 but she scales with attack speed or something, make her black spear some item like Viktor's has, or something else.

They could make her Q like this:

If Kalista issues a movement command while she activates Peirce, she jumps in that direction and pushes back an enemy due to the force of the throw.

I think making her black spear a permanent item after being used would be cool. You can maybe upgrade it, upgrading her jumps or stats.

I think maybe giving her a unique resource along with mana, one called Stamina. Jumping with her passive or Q uses stamina. Getting CC'd uses stamina. Hitting an enemy with Q gives stamina which is gained overtime.

OleandervineJul 3, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Maybe something like she can only hop with her Q, her attack speed is capped at 1.5 but she scales with attack speed or something, make her black spear some item like Viktor's has, or something else.

They could make her Q like this:

If Kalista issues a movement command while she activates Peirce, she jumps in that direction and pushes back an enemy due to the force of the throw.

I think making her black spear a permanent item after being used would be cool. You can maybe upgrade it, upgrading her jumps or stats.

I think maybe giving her a unique resource along with mana, one called Stamina. Jumping with her passive or Q uses stamina. Getting CC'd uses stamina. Hitting an enemy with Q gives stamina which is gained overtime.

I just believe Martial Poise should be scrapped. It has no relevance to her kit other than to give her kiting. I don't think restricting it will make it better. It was an interesting experiment, but it's time to move beyond it and focus on her kit rather than clinging to her mobility. Keeping it strictly for Q will make Q versatile, since it's on a CD and costs mana, but keeping it permanent is just not feasible.

ArakadiaJul 3, 20162 votes

That'd be like removing Zyra's plants, Caitlyn's headshot, Reksai's burrow, or Lucian's double shot. It's part of their identity.

I think it should be kept, but heavily changed like putting it only on her Q and make her Q's cd go down by attack speed.

OleandervineJul 3, 20162 votes

{quoted}

That'd be like removing Zyra's plants, Caitlyn's headshot, Reksai's burrow, or Lucian's double shot. It's part of their identity.

I think it should be kept, but heavily changed like putting it only on her Q and make her Q's cd go down by attack speed.

Except it's not iconic of Kalista. The spear and the Soulbond are what is iconic on Kalistsa, not thr hop. The hop is a bland additive to her kit that doesn't have anything to do with her characterization or the spells in her kit.

ArakadiaJul 4, 20162 votes

I'd say its pretty iconic. When I think Kalista I think a champion who is jumpier than a parkinsons patient, not the girl who can deal more damage when her supp attacks them too.

AptestJul 4, 20161 votes

Kalista's identity, at this point, is 2 things:

She's the ADC that jumps around too much, and She's the ADC that trolls her support.

MargaretThatcherJul 4, 20162 votes

yeah i bet that a champion that has 2 abilities that have to do with her passive, an atk speed steroid that helps her on kiting with the passive,that scales with atk speed and over the 75% of her animations based around the passive and chaining other animations into her passive doesn't have an iconic passive.

What's the point on picking kalista if isn't for the passive,then? Having an adc with 90% reduced damage on autos, a poor laning phase without any way of kiting and needs his support 24/7 to do something?

I would pick ashe over kalista, their kits are similar somehow, a kiting passive, an enage ult, vision and some damage spells. But ashe has more range, works better with lifesteal thanks to her Q, actually scales with crit and her vision and utility are global.

EvewynnJul 3, 20161 votes

I always thought her passive was kinda weird. Like..what does hopping have to do with her character at all? Everything else makes sense, but it could definitely be replaced with something a bit less annoying. Keep the hop on her spear though. Maybe a collection passive similar to thresh? She's all about collecting souls and stuff.

Masala ChaiJul 4, 20161 votes

Several reasons why this won't happen:

Riot feels Kalista's passive is not game-breaking; especially as she pays extremely heavily for her mobility. 90% scaling auto attacks, mediocre base stats, low end base attack speed, one of the slowest AA-windups in the game, 33% lower DPS while dashing, non-cancellable auto attacks.etc. Granted not all of these were avaliable on release. But the point stands.
You would have to reanimate Kalista because then her auto attack animation would be too slow; this would likely require a full VGU, because brushing up the animation like they did for Katarina or Jinx to such a massive extent would make her feel excessively clunky and make it nearly impossible to orbwalk unless your APM is that of a God.
If you just get rid of the dash mechanic from even Release Kalista, why should you play Kalista over any other ADC? You took away her mobility, so now she is just another immobile ADC. Why on earth would you pick Kalista over something like Ashe, Kog'Maw, Vayne or Twitch? Ashe, Kog'Maw, and Twitch have far safer auto attack ranges (even if only temporarily), Ashe has much better utility in the fact that her vision is global, and so is her arrow. Vayne, Kog'Maw and Twitch can shred tanks (and entire teams) far easier than Kalista can while not being dependent on an auto attack from a support with a rather slow AA animation (looking at you, Annie and Lulu) or low attack range (Braum, Blitzcrank). Vayne and Twitch also have evasive means to avoid damage through Tumble and Ambush.

YumaS2AstralJul 4, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Several reasons why this won't happen:

Riot feels Kalista's passive is not game-breaking; especially as she pays extremely heavily for her mobility. 90% scaling auto attacks, mediocre base stats, low end base attack speed, one of the slowest AA-windups in the game, 33% lower DPS while dashing, non-cancellable auto attacks.etc. Granted not all of these were avaliable on release. But the point stands.

And that's exactly why the passive is game-breaking. She has the same problem as Malzahar, in that in order to have this passive, the rest of her kit is heavily nerfed. The problem with Kalista, however, is that her gameplay stats are also nerfed, there is almost no champion which has to have lower AA wind-ups and no other champion which does not have 100% scaling auto-attacks.

Riot could just get rid of that passive and then remove ALL the things that are currently hindering her.

Masala ChaiJul 4, 20161 votes

"If you just get rid of the dash mechanic from even Release Kalista, why should you play Kalista over any other ADC? You took away her mobility, so now she is just another immobile ADC. Why on earth would you pick Kalista over something like Ashe, Kog'Maw, Vayne or Twitch? Ashe, Kog'Maw, and Twitch have far safer auto attack ranges (even if only temporarily), Ashe has much better utility in the fact that her vision is global, and so is her arrow. Vayne, Kog'Maw and Twitch can shred tanks (and entire teams) far easier than Kalista can while not being dependent on an auto attack from a support with a rather slow AA animation (looking at you, Annie and Lulu) or low attack range (Braum, Blitzcrank). Vayne and Twitch also have evasive means to avoid damage through Tumble and Ambush."

What you guys don't realize is that Kalista's identity is the dashing, it was in her concept art, her design, and her central identity, unlike Malzahar's Void Shift. If you get rid of her passive, Other E stacking champions will have methods to get E stacks far easier, Tristana has Draw a Bead! and Rapid Fire, Twitch has Venom Cask, Rat-a-tat-a-tat, and Ambush. Kalista has no AS steroids, because none of her abilities would be replaced unless you want Kalista to be Aatrox in that she is just a ball of stats.

TurquoiseYoshiJul 4, 20161 votes

To be fair, the passive can be balanced if the rest of her kit is healthier. And I feel like her hopping is more central to her perceived theme than her other shenanigans (neutral monster control, mostly free vision, her ult in general, etc.).

redfeenixJul 4, 20161 votes

You guys think they should replace the skipee-doo-dah passive or the soulbound passive?

Seems weird to have 2 such different passives on the same champ. She was so strong why does the balance team nerf 5 things at once instead one skill at a time. Then you can stop before champions become useless.

ltmetalJul 4, 20161 votes

My wishlist for Kalista changes in order from most desired to least desired:

Fix her "Sion Syndrome," i.e. unite Kalista's abilities under one theme.
Remove current passive and move W passive to innate passive.
Replace W active with something more engaging, like buffing the oathsworn or giving a movespeed steroid.
Allow her to scale with Critical Strike.

Jeanne fan clubJul 4, 20161 votes

Her passive is crucial for gaining rend stacks. If she is not able to stack them then she is useless. Other characters with stacking things like twitch or tristana have ways to keep up, or enhance range so that they can utilize their stacking abilities. If kalista lost her passive, then she would be able to stack 2, maybe 3 at most, and how would she be able to keep them in rend range considering the most popular adcs right now have mobility (other than jhin)

GULAG 4 UJul 4, 20161 votes

the current meta is flooded with immobile "free gold for kha'zix" champions like ashe lol.

Jeanne fan clubJul 4, 20161 votes

Honestly, I think champions like Khazix gimp team comps. he is useless in teamfights, he is an awful split pusher, he is pretty squishy and is only useful when finding a circumstantial pick.

GULAG 4 UJul 4, 20161 votes

Well honestly, he isn't useless in teamfights. His synergy with Amumu (go k6 mid) and Malphite MonkeyKing AurelionSol and any champion that forces people to be split apart is great. since now you have to deal with kha'zix nuking your squishies and jumping away or get 5 man hit by the aoe dmg champions. Also you don't need to be isolated in order for kha'zix to kill you. A full dmg build kha'zix's non-isolated q deals 600-800 without a lot of probs.

Backup4nowJul 4, 20161 votes

remove her passive, and then her main form of play is her rend. She will be a walking better version of twitch's expunge. She needs to be reworked from the ground up, not just removing the passive.

Masala ChaiJul 4, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Her kit is fun and 100% non-reliant on the passive.

Are you kidding me. If she has no dash, how is she going to escape ganks? Pretty much every other ADC has even a move speedbuff to escape ganks. How is she gonna apply Rend stacks to a target, when she has no easy way to do that, unlike Twitch and Tristana who have slows, AS steroids, and range increasers?

Hrkk PtooJul 4, 20161 votes

Being a Kalista Main Her jump is what made her fun to play and stand out from other adcs. She appeals to me as a character because of her ability to kite and deal tons of damage. Its unfortunate about her nerf and i haven't been able to pick her back up as of late but she is still one of my favourite champs.

ƒoesJul 4, 20161 votes

To be 100% honest, Kalista's leap passive is unique, but maybe not completely healthy where it is right now. Her W active is nowhere near the theme of her kit, or her lore theme in general. Others may argue, but it just doesn't feel like a powerful part of her kit.

Perhaps moving her passive to the W active and doing something else to her passive would be a lot better, as her constant leap would not longer be constant, and set on a cooldown that would be up, say, every 10/9/8/7/6 second cooldown. She would be more mobile in the late game, which is where kiting becomes more and more common, and not as furiously annoying in the early game.