Kai'Sa Build/Masteries Forum

Hi everyone,

Having seen all the discussion revolving around Kai'Sa's build here on the boards, so I decided I'd create a board for people to share their thoughts and discoveries. I've talked to some others and tried building her myself, so I, along with many others, have seemed to find a consensus that her kit is best suited to an on hit build.

I'll begin by starting with discussing her core items. Like Varus and Kog'Maw, and are core items, but on top of that, has emerged as another core item. Your kit is maximized by running a hybrid build, and with only 100 bonus AD, 100 AP, and 100% bonus MS, making the most out of your passive isn't that difficult. is the quintessential Kai'Sa item because it drastically speeds up the proc'ing of her % missing health damage.

Continuing off of that, has proven to also be an effective on hit item for her as well, and in this build path it brings us over the threshold for her Q buff.

As for her boots, are great because you want to break that AS barrier for your E, but I'd say wouldn't be a bad choice.

As for her final item before selling boots, many run , which is great for on hit, you're pumping out 45% AP every two hits, not including the shots from . However, I'd like to mention that there's an item that helps even more with tanky team comps because of passive which deals 4% max health as bonus physical damage on-hit, so with that's 12% every two hits, and that's or . Combine that with her passive and with and you'll be doing damage at high hp, mid hp, and low hp of a tank. I know it's a bit unusual to run a jungle item in a lane, because Kai'Sa, as my jg main roommate found out, has awful jg clears early, which makes her apparent jg prowess difficult to pull off, so she's really only a viable laner. However, when you're facing a tanky comp, being able to have three sources of % health damage will deliver on the crazy shred damage she was predicted to have. There's a risk in laning with instead of , but against a tanky frontline I believe it's worth taking

After selling boots, the way to finish is to run a , which will be doing 45% of your AP every two hits (as I mentioned earlier), which isn't going to be pumping out absurd amounts of damage considering she will cap around 220 or so AP, but that added damage is nothing to scoff at.

I had a friend mention working well on her, but I don't know how that will work.

As for Runes, she benefits from running Precision primary and Sorcery Secondary, which provides AP and AD to start off the game, which is really nice to begin your ability buffing quest. So with this in mind, let's look at the specific runes:

Lethal Tempo is the clear choice for a keystone, as you're breaking the AS barrier to reach 3.5 AS, which is essential to pumping out all your on hit damage and proc'ing your passive as fast as possible. The downside to this is that her range is awful, at only 500, so it will be a bit harder for her to work with in team fights.

After that, you want overheal and bloodline to get some sustain, especially since she runs to lifesteal items (one of which does lifesteal from abilities), so she can keep healthy, because, as we know, she likes diving.

And of course, Coup de Grace is the standard 3rd Rune in Precision, and it synergizes perfectly with her passive.

As for Sorcery, you'll want to run celerity for the bonus MS and adaptive damage based on your MS. After that, you'll want to run Gathering Storm for the scaling. Scorch won't work as well because it has a cooldown and isn't on hit damage.

So to conclude, I hope that you all found this post insightful, and I hope to hear all of your thoughts. I know people have talked about focusing Crit or AP, but with her abilities scaling off both I would disagree. I can deal with some cheesy 30% crit.

Hopefully when I have more time I will add a chart to show her damage with all of these items.

I hope to hear all of y'all's thoughts, so don't hesitate to share your thoughts, and have fun playing Kai'Sa