2 changes to make Kalista (more) balanceable
Kalista is broken as hell, but I don't want her to get Azir'd (mindless nerfs across the board without addressing core kit issues). She will never be fun to play against as long as she has this passive, but there are ways to make it better. One major thing that ruins the fun is the lack of countering mechanism to some of her abilities. Here are my two proposed changes to fix it.
- Passive jump distances are reduced by slows - Reduction in jump distance corresponds to the amount of slow (e.g. 60% slow result in a 60% shorter jump). Rationale: Kalista can only be reliably locked down by two rare mechanics: point and click hard CC & gap closers. The result is that only a select few champions are playable against her (Liss, Irelia). Slows are fairly plentiful and most of them are easy to land, so this change will double or triple the amount of viable picks against Kalista.
- Add a delay to her ultimate - After Kalista casts R, there will be a short delay before the Soulbound becomes untargetable. During the delay, a mark appears above the Soulbound to inform everyone, and a special effect will be visible for the Soulbound only (similar to Zilean ult). Hard CC such as knockup, stun, or root will delay the untargetability until the CC effect ends. Rationale: There are currently no gameplay associated with this ability AT ALL. You press R for a get-out-of-jail card for your Soulbound and the enemies can't stop you from doing it no matter what. That's not healthy for the game at all. The enemy needs options in dealing with this ability. This change will give them a choice: they can either focus the Soulbound down before untargetability applies or back off. This will also give a warning for a potential engage.
What these changes focus on is essentially giving the opponent more options. It is ok for a champion to excel at things, but only if it's through smart decision making. If your decision making cannot change the outcome not matter what (e.g.
), the kit becomes toxic and the only way to stop it from ruining the game is to gut it. Kalista has that kind of kit atm, but I believe it is improvable if not fixable.
Some of these suggestions are not original ideas, but I cannot find the original thread and I want to bring them up again for more visibility.
EDIT: Added extra points to round out my rationale.