Real talk.
I've never seen a more disgusting character in any other game I've played. I am qualified to say this because I defeated Whitney's Miltank and that actually felt like a victory.
Winning against Kalista feels like having a tumor surgically removed from a vital organ. It's like "yeah, you won, but you're gonna still need a few months to recover".
Enosetc74 votesPeople seem to be assuming that my disliking of Kalista is based mostly on her passive. While that is part of it, there are multiple aspects of Kalista that I hate interacting with regardless of if I'm her enemy or her ally.
Okay, this was cute the first three times, but why is this necessary? You still cannot deny the Black Spear and if for some reason Kalista forgets and decides to do it in the middle of the laning phase, she screws both people over. I've had this happen to me before and I was not amused.
This was addressed in another post in this thread, but this is a ridiculously strong ability by itself and even more ridiculous when added to Kalista's already oppressive kit. Why does she need this random power attached to a champion that's already relatively difficult to outplay compared to other ADCs?
Admittedly, this is a pretty cool ability, but again, I feel as though it has random power tacked on it that someone with Kalista's identity shouldn't need. For one, why does it need to reset on minion kills? Why is the gold reward for killing a minion not enough for a champion that should be looking to farm to reach their powerspike?
Secondly, why does it not have a damage cap on neutral objectives. If Riot wants to create a champion that excels at securing neutral objectives, that's fine, but it doesn't belong on a champion with Kalista's identity. A champion that's as ridiculously mobile as Kalista should not also have the ability to do a bigger chunk of damage to a neutral objective than a jungler's true damage Smite.
I don't have a problem with the damage it does to champions. It adequately conveys what's going to happen if the champion stays in range of Kalista's basic attacks and needs to be ramped up to burst a target. This is probably the only part of Kalista's design that I think is healthy while still being a unique identifier that separates her from other champions.
I'm just going to come out and say it: Fuck this ability. As an ally, I don't want my current action being interrupted by someone sucking me into their chest to have me thrown at the opposition. I've had many a Kalista use this ability out of panic and have me killed because I eventually have to show the enemy where I'm tossing myself to. On the other hand, this ability is too ridiculously braindead-simple to land for the reward it offers in the form of hard CC. Because of it, Kalista's synergy with already-strong supports is absolutely disgusting and makes playing against her a constant source of frustration.
That's my rant and there's no tl;dr. srynotsry
Zyorhist2 votessome of these aspects are being rectified soon with the reduction of her basic attack damage. I actually like the team play she forces but I do feel that she is overpowered. And I would like to add that I am thoroughly annoyed with the changes they made to her passive.
The should have made the passive leap shorter instead of hurting her AS if she wants to move. I literally can get 1.5 attack speed while leaping even if I have invested to get my 2.5 AS. She should just have shorter jumps instead of getting hit on her AS.
Enosetc30 votessome of these aspects are being rectified soon with the reduction of her basic attack damage. I actually like the team play she forces but I do feel that she is overpowered. And I would like to add that I am thoroughly annoyed with the changes they made to her passive.
The should have made the passive leap shorter instead of hurting her AS if she wants to move. I literally can get 1.5 attack speed while leaping even if I have invested to get my 2.5 AS. She should just have shorter jumps instead of getting hit on her AS.
watching riot try to balance this monstrosity is hilarious. the idea that they're going to make her basic attacks not scale 1:1 just shows that this champion should have never been anything more than a bad idea
Jungle Lux God9 votesI think you said everything that I wanted to say that were horrible about Kalista.
And more that I didn't think of, but in my opinion Sentinel's passive is pretty cool gameplay-wise because it encourages players to coordinate for a greater effect than either of them could by themselves, even if it is a bit overtuned.
Also, Rend resetting on minion kill I think probably should be on Kalista's kit because she can't cancel her auto attack in case she misjudges whether her auto attack will kill her target, as she can't cancel her auto attack to prevent this from happening.
At the same time Rend shouldn't have its slow. You already made Kalista the single most mobile ADC in the entire game with a fairly decent auto attack range, and you give her the ability to slow enemies from range when she feels like it too? No other mobile ADC is even close except for Ezreal's Blue Build, and that build is specifically designed for utility instead of dealing damage.
Count Lieberkuhn54 votesKalista is a champion whose main problem is that she has an overloaded kit, and thus no true identity. A champion should be easily definable using the following sentence structure:
"This champion is good at X and Y, but is weak at Z". For example, Sion has good AOE damage and tankiness, but has well-telegraphed and easily dodged skills.
A champion should have 1 or 2 defining features, and a defining weakness as well. This gives a champion a true identity in the game. A best case scenario, and a worst case scenario.
Kalista has too much going on. She's super mobile, she's got a stacking attack that gives great dragon/baron control, she has great support synergy which allows her to save or engage super well, she has good vision utility, resets, etc. What is her niche? In what scenario would another adc be a strictly better pick, excluding the enemy team all having point-and-click CC?
Here-in lies the problem. I would argue that the hop has to go. Reason being, we already have an adc who is good at kiting/chasing, provides vision and has a hard initiation ult. Her name is Ashe. We don't need someone else who outclasses Ashe on the kiting front.
What the adc world doesn't have outside of Kalista is someone who emphasises neutral buff control, or the ticking time bomb that is rend in general in a fight. Rend in itself is a cool ability that gives Kalista a unique play pattern, with counter play. You gotta burst her before she gets enough stacks, because she's gonna finish you off with a ton of rend stacks otherwise.
She doesn't need mobility. She doesn't need rend resetting on minion kills; resetting on champion kills is enough. All these things serve to do is make the champion more overloaded and frustrating to play against.
Also, what does CertainlyT have against skillshots? First windwall, now perma-hops. Considering Riot is moving away from targeted skills, making champions who punish skillshots is an outright middle finger to the design of the game in general. In league's early years, one of its biggest selling points was an emphasis on skillshots compared to DotA/HoN, and so making skills that contradict this philosophy is just wrong.
Viddax3 votesThis is exactly the problem Ekko had. I mean was Ekko a little too strong? Yeah. Did they adjust him appropriately? I think so. (Still sucks when someone feeds him, but whatever.) But either way, there's way too much in the kits of these champs. Honestly, Bard has the same problem. I would say Gnar does, but it actually makes sense with him. Really though, all the recent champions have just been way too complicated.
PokladnicaZla1 votesThis is exactly the problem Ekko had. I mean was Ekko a little too strong? Yeah. Did they adjust him appropriately? I think so. (Still sucks when someone feeds him, but whatever.) But either way, there's way too much in the kits of these champs. Honestly, Bard has the same problem. I would say Gnar does, but it actually makes sense with him. Really though, all the recent champions have just been way too complicated.
Umm,how's Bard kit overloaded? (if you were refearing to that)
Duke Anax7 votesBard isn't overloaded per se. He just got four different things going on that don't quite mesh together.
PokladnicaZla1 votesWhat would those 4 things be?
Duke Anax5 votespoke, sustain, movement and stasis.
I think the heal could be removed here and instead give him a movespeed shrine. As that seems to be his most unique abbility: getting people around the map.
ForPortal1 votesThat would suck. The worst thing about Bard is that you are expected to play around what he wants you to do or he will punish you, and replacing a universally useful ability like "more health" with a speed boost that only works if you run in the direction Bard wanted you to run would only make that problem worse.
If Bard's shrines provide a MS boost, it should be in addition to the heal, not instead.
WeFlyNoLie2 votesYou both realize that Bard's shrines already do this, correct? They heal and provide a move speed bonus. Not to mention you can cast the shrine on yourself or an ally for an instant move speed bonus.
Duke Anax1 votesNo I didn't realize, and apparently he didn't either. Thanks for pointing it out.
Now it makes more sense that the heal is somewhat weak, if the shrine has another function.
WeFlyNoLie3 votesRight, and the other reason they're not as strong as say Taric or Soraka is because you can leave them any where and use them later.
I start every game I play as Bard with giving two shrines to the jungler wherever they start. It makes their clear so much easier and they are always grateful.
Nameless Voice13 votesThis sums it up really well. Kalista has enough unusual things on her kit that she could still be an interesting champion without her passive.
As it is, she is without a doubt the single worst-designed champion in the game in terms of balance. No other champion - not even Yasuo - hard-counters other champions to the same extent that she does. Have shorter range than her? Rely on skillshots? Don't have point-and-click hard CC or a gapcloser and instant burst? Congratulations, you cannot interact with this champion at all.
DeusVult31 votesSlight rant Incoming
Deep Breath
CertainlyT, for all the champs he makes, doesn't seem to understand what "niche" means. On release, all of his champs have been giant balls of stats combined with interesting new gameplay mechanics, but the thing is that, at least initially, none of them had any defining weaknesses.
Was a monster back when top lane was mostly passive; he has since seen a long string of nerfs, but other than trying to kite him forever, he had no weaknesses. His damage was top-notch while being tanky, and his early game was god-like.
Continues to be one of the strongest supports in the game and has been since released. He has it all. Engage, peel, one of the best safety lines in the game (even if your teammates choose never to use it for some reason), damage steroid, range, and can become insanely tanky. He has no downsides except that he cant heal, but relic shield helps him out a little.
Not even going to talk about her on release. Still having flashbacks. Has seen a ton of nerfs since then. But, before that, she had burst, DPS from plants, CC and could scout. She was a monster that has since been nerfed into somewhat of a niche.
Yes, CertainlyT didn't design him, but he had a hand in him. Has seen nerfs, but Zed has everything a AD caster wants without the gimping mana costs that all his counterparts share. Plus solid waveclear and low energy costs as if not having mana wasn't enough.
Surprise, another AD Caster without mana. Initially a bundle of free stats (Passives [both of them], Ult) Exceedingly high mobility, lack of any real CDs outside of windwall. Was a nightmare for a while mid lane.
And then he felt like he had to outdo himself, so he created Kalista, tossed everything into her kit, passed it off denying the cancer that it was and called it a day. Eventually she will be brought into line.
CertainlyT has great ideas, but he has no concept of niche or what a balanced champion should be.
ayNigerianPrince5 votesTo be fair, Yasuo is more of a melee adc.
ayNigerianPrince2 votes[{quoted}](name=I Hunt Yordles,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=xh78yopy,comment-id=000a0003000200000001,timestamp=2015-07-15T15:48:29.299+0000)
melee carry.
I think it's safe to narrow it down to attack damage carry as a huge-ass majority of his damage is attack damage. But thanks for the unnecessary correction.
Emperor Antares1 votesDarius? Long string of nerfs? Nah just one huge nerf on his ultimate...
OyddAWqJ5r5 votesV3.8:
Apprehend.png Apprehend Undocumented: animation is slower and has a wind-up. Range decreased to 540 from 550. V3.03:
Noxian Guillotine.png Noxian Guillotine Reworked - When Noxian Guillotine kills the target, it can be recast within the next 12 seconds. This can occur multiple times in succession. Cooldown adjusted to 120 / 100 / 80 seconds from 100 at all ranks. V1.0.0.152:
Stats Base movement speed increased to 340 from 315. V1.0.0.142:
Noxian Guillotine.png Noxian Guillotine No longer refreshes upon killing champion clones (e.g. ShacoSquare.png Shaco's Hallucinate.png Hallucinate. V1.0.0.140b:
Hemorrhage.png Hemorrhage: Attack damage ratio reduced to (+30% Bonus AD) from (+40% Bonus AD). Fixed a bug where it was applying Rylai's Crystal Scepter item.png Rylai's Crystal Scepter slow and spell vamp effects. Apprehend.png Apprehend Pre-pull animation modified to be more readable for enemy champions. Noxian Guillotine.png Noxian Guillotine Cooldown now only refreshes when it deals the killing blow.
Only Play Darius28 votes
disgust me.
LeBlanc's playerbase is as toxic as her gameplay pattern, and Kalista is completely overloaded and her 100% pick/ban rate proves how fucked up she is.
Emperor Time2 votesAgreed
ShadowParker11 votesAt least Leblanc is pretty straight forward.
No extra passives, no %hp damage, so she can't shred tanks. We can tell where she can jump back to, and can be killed by melees.
g07h4xf0022 votesNo.
/thread
Ariel the Cruel20 votesDoes anyone actually enjoy Kalista's existence in this game
Kalista mains.
Lord Dusteon17 votesI was Ryze against one. That was fun; you can't dodge when you can't move.
Seriously though, until she gets 2+ items and boots she can't out kite melees, but after that she can infinitely kite them assuming they don't blow her up with a point and click gapcloser. She's fun overall to play, but being against her as an immobile or low mobility melee is horrible and being her against any high mobility or high damage gapclosers is horrible.
Chaotic Reks17 votesNo
Mr Broken Wings13 votesKalistas passive was a mistake, makes her always cancerous if she is somehow viable. I thought riot learned their lesson of releasing completly disgusting kits after yasuo and vladimir. Seriously, the passive IS gamebreaking and that will never change till they delete or change it :/
Keevalroy12 votesI've seen 2 that are almost as bad 
One of them was made by the same idiot who created Kalista...
Count Lieberkuhn14 votesI like to think of Ekko as the first CertainlyT champion that wasn't designed by CertainlyT. He has all the toxic, unhealthy bad design hallmarks of one of his abominations.
MarhsallLee674 votesTo be fair, Ekko has a delayed burst, and all but one of his abilities (his E) are dodge-able in some way or another. This means that there's more you can do against him (in lane, at least) in comparison to most CertainlyT champs.
I don't understand why he needs that extra passive on his W, though. His regular passive already does enough damage. Of all champions, Ekko does not need to have increased damage against low-health targets.
I Miss Cannon10 votesI'm pretty sure not even ADC mains enjoy her. I want lucian back man..
Altricad10 votesI think people aren't getting it clearly so I'll say it
If you've taken 10 hits from kalista and you've survived her Rend with 1/5th your hp,
chances are, if it's ANY other adc you'd have died much earlier.
Screw, hops/everything etc. ANY other adc, and you'd have died 2x as fast.
has mixed damage ( passive does 10% true damage based on AD)
has true damage
has aoe crit ( and 25% damage on crits in rocket form)
has his ridiculous burst
is Draaaaaven ( highest adc damage output possible)
utility and perma slow and amazing initiation with stun
has long range poke
Compared to them, what does kalista have? She doesn't even have 100% ad scalings.... building crit on her is useless due to that.
Her ulti requires your support to be on the same page as you ( Not every game is ranked 5s... this is yolo queue), Also does NO damage.
Like, what adc has an ult that CAN"T be used without a support? 
does no damage, but she can use it to get out of sticky situations easily.
Her ONLY long range poke is her Q, which is pitifully blocked by minions
Yes, she has a LOT, but she lacks the most important quality an ADC needs and that is the DAMAGE.
Kalista has possibly the LOWEST damage to towers because of the nerf to her ad scalings
And yes, I'm a kalista main with a above 50+ win rate, but there have been plenty of games, where if I fall behind I'm more useless than the support.
You can't crit by luck You can't hop fast enough to get away You can't even reliably farm to catch up without your support there ( I've been 1 vs 1'd plenty of times by other adcs... kalista lacks any steroid and her kit makes her useless when alone)
Her identity is a kite-adc that scales amazingly well into late game but depends 100% on her support.
If you've seen pro games,( Rekkles playing kalista etc), they run "protect" the kalista comps because kalista NEEDs time to stack up her rend spears whereas can throw out 1 rocket, 1 shot the support and then immediately re-position
I will agree that her sentinel does too much damage, def nerf needed there
tldr; Kalista lacks DAMAGE compared to any other adc. And is the MOST support reliant adc ever.
Enosetc3 votestldr; Kalista lacks DAMAGE compared to any other adc. And is the MOST support reliant adc ever.
(disclaimer: i read your entire statement. i'm snipping your post to shorten the length of the page)
i'm not discounting the fact that her damage is almost completely reliant on rend stacking. i think i said somewhere that i appreciate this part of her kit because it gives you a clear indication of how much damage you're going to take if you stay in an extended trade with kalista. my problem with rend is the fact that it can reset from minion kills and secure objectives better than a jungler can.
to add to what i do like about rend, i much prefer this mechanic over critical strikes on traditional adcs. you can't predict when exactly a crit will happen unless it's in the case of 100% crit chance. rend removes the RNG and tells you when the chunk of damage might come. there's an opportunity to play around this because of the fact that it's telegraphed, but it still will burst you if you choose not to do so. this is great design in my opinion and doesn't need random power tacked onto it
(sorry if my posts are needlessly long. i'm having trouble consolidating my thoughts today..)
Teridax689 votesRant incoming:
While I do respect CertainlyT for having the courage to implement really novel and experimental mechanics (e.g. perma-dashes, giving allies dashes, impenetrable walls, etc.), I hate the design of a lot of his champions, and I think they're emblematic of Riot's recent struggles with kit depth. On one hand, I appreciate the fact that we've moved onto more complex kits, which tend to have much richer and more varied gameplay than older champions (hello 
), but on the other hand, champions like , and are so overloaded that I think their kits reduce their depth of gameplay. To me, a champion's depth is represented by the amount of meaningful choices their kit presents for them, their allies and their enemies. 
's kit has a lot of depth, for example, because he can allow himself and his team to do stuff no other champion can do (e.g. pass through entire walls, free 
/
which can also be used to stun from a distance), but also gives his opponents tons of choices, some of which can actually put them at a significant advantage (such as when Bard lays down an ill-advised Magical Journey and gives the enemy team a free dash, or when he ults an ally or himself at the wrong moment). By contrast, CertainlyT's most recent champions have so many options that any choice they make is valid: Kalista's great at poking, due to her W, but is also great at trading, due to her E; she synergizes really well with her support, due to her W and ult, but is also really strong alone, thanks to her perma-dash innate; her E is meant to be an execute, but even if she doesn't get the kill it's fine, since the ability also comes with a slow that allows her to finish off targets even after they survived her Rend. When every choice is valid... well, none of them are that meaningful. The ratio of added depth to the amount of features of Kalista's kit, or Yasuo's kit, or even Thresh's kit, is tiny, and it feels like they all just had a ton of stuff piled onto their ability sets just as an attempt to artificially add depth. On top of this, there are often not that many choices those champions' opponents can make: Yasuo's Wind Wall just invalidates last hitting for extended periods of time in lane, for example, and Kalista presents little to no counterplay against melee champions, especially immobile ones. Kalista herself often diminishes her own ally's options, too, since most of her ally-centric effects are tremendously intrusive and done without their consent.
On top of this, one of the things that irritates me is how CertainlyT's champions don't play by everyone else's rules: one of the common features of his most recent champions is that they get to do tons of stuff that would, by most standards, be considered game-breaking, and is in many circumstances (Kalista is literally immune to slows while in combat, which makes her existence invalidate that of many melee champions, her E lets her out-
junglers and voids Smite stealing, can just casually negate even the most well-played of some ults at the press of a button), and have tons of secondary effects that would be considered a main feature on other champions (Thresh steals 
's infinitely scaling AP, Yasuo gets to ignore half his opponents' bonus armor after ulting, for some reason, Kalista's Sentinels provide the largest amount of objective-related vision in the game). To counterbalance this, they's also the only champions, bar , who explicitly have maluses added to their kits just so that they'd remain balanced: Thresh and Kalista both have wonky behind-the-scenes interaction with attack speed and their attack windups, Yasuo has less crit damage in "compensation" for his super-snowbally doubled crit chance, and now Kalista doesn't even have the same basic interaction with attack damage as any other champion. Everytime any of those three champions enters a game, it feels like they're imposing themselves on the enemy team and their own, and not in a positive way (they command attention, but not necessarily respect). I would personally appreciate any of these champions much more if they had a more focused, streamlined kit, one that didn't try so hard to be cute on a high-end design level, but that instead attempted to genuinely fulfill an interesting gameplay and thematic niche (Kalista, in particular, has the personality of a lobster).
Count Lieberkuhn3 votesI would much rather play a lobster champion than Kalista. That could have some actual personality.
That being said, I'm not sure how much artistic control CertainlyT has over his champions. Every single champion he designed except maybe Zyra (which he only co-designed) is a Mary-Sue-shaped piece of cardboard in terms of personality, but that may not be his fault.
What IS his fault is the unhealthy gameplay mechanics he brings in however, which is typically down to champions being overloaded, and as a result having no incorrect choices to make, as you said.
Vicarious1178 votesYes, Kalista players do, cause then they can cheese their way to victories using a champion with an overloaded and overwhelmingly acknowledged broken kit. I mean, less AD ratio? That's essentially Riot saying "yeah, she's obviously overpowered as fuck so her autos will just do slightly less damage then everyone else, but we don't want to change her kit cause that would mean we're admitting we fucked up!"
LegitBacon667 votesThe recent nerfs did jack shit. She just outclasses all ADCs. The only person that can actually kite is vanye, but that is on an ability and has a cooldown and not a fucking passive. Her ult is just worse. Im fine with tahm kench eating allies and shit, but this bitch has like a mega bulldozing knock-up which I don't even understand. You can't run at her or run from her, and the more she autos you, its just one click of a button until your deleted.
PotatoReker6 votesyou forgot 
hi im victuh4 votesWhile we're at it, lets just remove all crowd controls and mana because they're anti fun
oh.
Poenacanuck4 votesOverloaded kit for sure. I think the thing I hate the most is when her ult is used defensively... You manage to beat that overloaded kit and are one hit from killing her support and she can save them from a mile away...
Xela Syab4 votesI just think Kalista needs a damage cap on rend for atleast monsters. it's really dumb to give an adc so much objective control.
Stark60004 votesI've been banning her since she came out but nobody believes me. With some minimal CC help, she's nearly impossible to catch.
xGarzilla2 votesUnless the person is really bad, she probably has the most mobility in the game, just by using her AA's. One would say, "well you can stun or snare her", that would be fine and dandy if you have a "lock-on" skill to do that, but for one's that are skill shots, they are a lot more tricky to hit on her.
The Lexer1 votes"Unless the person is really bad"
not exactly accurate. Decent people can dodge skill shots with Kalista, but only the best Kalista players can dodge every single thing you throw at them. Plus there is a cast animation on the jump, its not like she instantly dashes all around wherever she wants
Sozan54 votesYeah. That one is Yasuo.
