If Kalista's Martial Poise is Such a Coding Nightmare, Why Keep It?

The Yetii Rider·Nov 2, 2016·53 votes·3,582 views

Kalista's passive gets a new bug every three patches or so, it seems. Being unable to cancel her autos is honestly not the best way to implement some kind of kiting mechanic. And a passive like that being intended to teach players how to orb walk doesn't really fit with a kit that has one of the most unique and complex kits in the class (Fate's Call doesn't seem like the type of ability that fits a player just learning how to ADC).

So why not move Martial Poise to just her Q, and give her a new passive so she can cancel her autos again and the people who like her don't have to sit around waiting on reworks and bug fixes?

92 Comments

ThatHaleStateNov 2, 201627 votes

Cuz thats admitting defeat. Coders dont admit defeat.

Nameless VoiceNov 2, 201626 votes

Champion designers never admit that a design was a bad idea.

SulghunterNov 3, 20167 votes

Ryze

HawkefireNov 3, 20164 votes

Yeah and look at how many YEARS it took them to actually do something successful about it.

WinTheWarOnPantsNov 4, 20161 votes

i thought we were still counting O.O

HawkefireNov 4, 20161 votes

Ehh, I'd say the most recent rework was semi-decent and made him a little less annoying to deal with. Not by much though.

WinTheWarOnPantsNov 4, 20161 votes

i can't ever see ryze being in a decent spot while he still has his instant, and targeted, root. honestly blows my mind that they have change all of his abilities(his E to a much lesser degree), but the freaking targeted root is the ONE ability they don't change...

ThatHaleStateNov 4, 20161 votes

So many champs have a targeted root though, that isnt the problem lol

HawkefireNov 4, 20161 votes

Agreed. The root isn't the issue with Ryze, and my current beef with him actually has to do with other abilities. His poke is a bit difficult to deal with when you are immobile and melee, but if you have any form of mobility at all you can generally deal with Ryze earlygame.

That being said I haven't actually faced someone that I considered to be "exceptional" at ryze, so that may be different if facing someone that is a true main.

WinTheWarOnPantsNov 4, 20161 votes

"is poke is a bit difficult to deal with when you are immobile and melee, but if you have any form of mobility at all you can generally deal with Ryze early game." exactly and every single one of the immobile melee ranged champs are top laners which is where Ryse goes. we don't need to get too into this cause it's not a huge deal since ryze is on the trash side right now, but his root is just way to oppressive in his primary lane to be balanced IMO. targeted hard cc has historically been a huge problem in league and alot of it has been removed Taric Evelynn Sion etc

HawkefireNov 4, 20161 votes

The way Ryze counters immobile champions isn't nearly as bad as other champions, and I honestly don't have an issue with a champion that counters immobile champions, especially when it seems to be the purpose of the champion (versus numerous others where it seems to be icing on the cake rather than an actual intended feature).

Farming against Ryze isn't nearly as disgusting as it used to be, although sustain definitely is an issue. When facing a lane against Ryze and you happen to be an immobile champion (something that he is good against), then you need to itemize for sustain earlygame. Ryze burns through mana like it was water while poking, and it takes him a long time to get it back so if you can sustain through it you can farm and take him out. Don't bother trying to trade with Ryze unless he really screws up his positioning, and abuse bushes as much as you can to prevent poke and get farm. Stay in the bush until a minion is low enough for you to take out and if you have to use abilities to farm then do so (ESPECIALLY if you are manaless or your spells cost insignificant amounts of mana).

Let him push up, because Ryze is EXTREMELY vulnerable to ganks, and top lane is the easiest lane to gank for. If your lucky and you actually got a good jungler that knows how to gank you can generally obliterate him with a couple good ganks. And if Ryze does get behind he will stay behind for pretty much the entire game until the extreme lategame period.

WinTheWarOnPantsNov 4, 20161 votes

Ryse counters MELEE champs not immobile champs. targeted CC is a hard counter to everyone, but it's specifically a hard counter to mobile because they can't dodge it. "Ryze burns through mana like it was water while poking" lol so he never has mana problems XD. "Let him push up, because Ryze is EXTREMELY vulnerable to ganks" he is no easier to gank than anyone else... but since he has targeted hard cc that give him a leg up on a lot of top laners in that regard.

WinTheWarOnPantsNov 4, 20161 votes

Maokai i count one. you're gonna need to help me with the rest.

The Yetii RiderNov 4, 20161 votes

Champions with a targeted root/stun/knock up: Annie Blitzcrank Braum Fiddlesticks Irelia Jayce Karma Leblanc LeeSin Leona Lissandra Lulu Malzahar Maokai Nautilus Pantheon Rammus Renekton Ryze Singed Skarner TahmKench Udyr Urgot Volibear Warwick

It's really not that many.

ThatHaleStateNov 4, 20161 votes

20% of the champions in the game isn't that many.... hmmmmmm

AbyssphereNov 4, 20161 votes

Nope. 43% win rate while being one of the best mids at World's is basically exactly the same spot the previous rework was in.

HawkefireNov 4, 20161 votes

Well....Ryze does have a fairly massive amount of counters (pretty much any champion with mobility earlygame, and pretty much every champion that outranges him). His kit is also fairly difficult requiring very careful spell usage and a solid understanding of his combos and when to use those combos properly. On top of that his ult is 100% non-combat meaning he doesn't get a level 6 spike like many other champions (and is honestly extremely weak to use until you get a second rank in it, frankly I almost wonder if it is better to simply skip leveling it until you hit level 10, that way the moment you hit 11 you get 2 ranks in it and it actually becomes useful), also in order to even take advantage of his ult your team requires some extremely good coordination and timing to pull off properly.

If anything I think his new ult was a mistake and that it is the root cause of his terrible winrate. Now what to replace it with? I honestly have no idea (but I definitely wouldn't replace it with mobility of any sort).

AbyssphereNov 4, 20162 votes

I agree that the ult is the problem. It was a ridiculous idea to give a champion that excels too much in pro play and struggles outside of it an ultimate that works by far at its best with co-ordinated teams on voice chat. Like, mostly the rework is great but then they cancelled out half of the good work they did by giving him an ult that only exacerbates his issues.

Tenth LeperNov 2, 20168 votes

I would love this. She is my favorite adc aesthetically and I love her rend too, but those hops make her annoying to play against, often with, and sometimes even as. The glitches don't help matters.

MarshbouyNov 2, 20163 votes

Becuase then here niche is pretty much gone and she becomes "just an ADC" or something, i don't know.

Nameless VoiceNov 2, 201614 votes

Considering that right now, her niche (when she's strong) is "crazy rabbit that melee champions can't interact with", that wouldn't exactly be a bad thing.

MarshbouyNov 2, 20163 votes

Like i said, "or something, i don't know" Riot probably finds leaving a champion at a 45% winrate less offensive than taking them out of thier niche.

Voluug13Nov 3, 201615 votes

She has 45% winrate because her entire niche is unbalanceale and unhealthy for the very champion. She has to be in an overnerfed state because otherwise she completly invalidates melee that arent hypermobile and basically shoves out any other adc that isnt Caitlyn thanks to how safe Kalista is.

She needs a new niche that isnt ''crazy ghost rabbit adc''.

MarshbouyNov 3, 20162 votes

Yeah i know. Try telling riot that.

WyrmbladeNov 3, 20163 votes

Martial poise should have been something an entire champion is built around, not something tacked on to a kit that already has the pact mechanic and strong objective control.

Preferably it would favor using the dashes to move around the target instead of kite infinitely.

SpecterVonBarenNov 3, 20161 votes

They should just put it onto Kindred as a new W for them since that's essentially what their current W is trying to replicate.

Dynamiku EntryNov 3, 20162 votes

Don't you mean Kindred's Q?

ElikainNov 3, 20163 votes

But Kalista isn't an introductory champion. Kalista's passive has a unique mechanic that may teach players how to "orb walk" but it's different than any other champion has. Her passive does not make her one and so, her kit doesn't have to be as simple as you have with Ashe.

The point of Kalista is to enforce "kiting" as a way to play her correctly and with your support in hand, not solo. I'm not saying that she may not be a tough nut to crack for those solo players out there and maybe, just maybe, she suffers from the "binary champ" syndrome a little but she's far from being in the Aatrox's dumpster.

ModKnightsKemplarNov 3, 20161 votes

Depends on how you define it. On the NA servers...

Bronze- 4% worse win rate than Aatrox Silver- 6% worse win rate than Aatrox Gold- 3% worse win rate than Aatrox Plat - 1.5% worse win rate than Aatrox Diamond - 8% worse win rate than Aatrox

You can check your own region to see how it stacks up (I'm using bestbans.com for the stats), but I fail to see how that's not as bad as Aatrox. She's worse than him at every level, with a win rate less than 40% in diamond. That's abysmal.

ElikainNov 4, 20162 votes

Aatrox has more issues than Kalista does. Aatrox's playstyle and kit doesn't work anymore while Kalista isn't being played outside of organized play as you rely on your lane partner almost all the time. She simply has too many penalties for doing things on her own but for good reason - she used to kite so hard and used to 1v3 people. Runaan's with all of that made her impossible to catch and then run away from.

ModKnightsKemplarNov 4, 20161 votes

A fair point.

I still think comparing her to Aatrox undermines your point slightly, but I'm happy to be in civil disagreement about that. :) Aatrox and Kalista are both champions that need to be revisited.

ElikainNov 4, 20161 votes

I think i saw some Kalista and Azir discussions from Riot on surrender at 20. I guess they plan to do some work on them in the future.

ModKnightsKemplarNov 4, 20161 votes

I hope so. The next reworks are Galio and Warwick, and I hope some of the ones shortly after that will be Urgot and Mordekaiser. But after those get looked at, I think that Kalista should be close to the top of the list of champions that desperately need reworks. Azir, as well.

Many of the champs from that time period were just crazy overloaded. They are high skill-cap champs that have too many moving parts to ever be balance-able. I think Riot just underestimated player's ability to master a kit, mainly. It's tough, but a lot of people can put a lot of time into this game, and overloaded kits will just continually lead to broken champs. "Trimming" the power from them only leaves them unplayable. They need to be reworked from the ground up into something that can actually be balanced.

I don't put Aatrox into that camp, though, which I think is part of the reason I don't consider him to be as bad. He's got issues, but I don't feel the "overloaded" nature of kits like Azir and Kalista really share an underlying problem with champs like Aatrox.

Aatrox seems more like Mordekaiser to me; they are both in the "drain tank" type of category, where they just can't be killed if they get ahead. That's just too oppressive. Riot needs to find a way to deliver on that fantasy that isn't so binary.

GULAG 4 UNov 4, 20161 votes

Why compare her to aatrox?

AbyssphereNov 4, 20162 votes

He's responding to someone who said she was nowhere near as bad as Aatrox.

Big LincolnNov 2, 20162 votes

I never thought she was a learner ADC. She requires teamwork and being good at kiting to excel, if anything she should be for the high end of players

I would rather see Q offer a larger leap than her passive ( make passive leaps smaller but improve her attacking to compensate, make Q take larger jumps because she's throwing more of herself into it)

I like that she is good for coordinated duos but I would prefer if more was done to empower her support rather than most everything out of the oath being solely for Kalista's benefit

The Yetii RiderNov 2, 20163 votes

The point is that her passive requires her to be unable to cancel her autos, but a lot of CC functions by canceling any auto orders given (which is why bugs like her attacking during Guardian Angel or Zhonya's come up).

I just think the costs of maintaining it in a healthy and bug free state outweigh the benefits.

ErockandrollNov 3, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Yetii Rider,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=zftEuvzv,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2016-11-02T19:23:30.058+0000)

The point is that her passive requires her to be unable to cancel her autos, but a lot of CC functions by canceling any auto orders given (which is why bugs like her attacking during Guardian Angel or Zhonya's come up).

I just think the costs of maintaining it in a healthy and bug free state outweigh the benefits.

As much as people will complain about her passive itself, the future handling of uncancelable AA may come up in another champion's kit.

Over all, Riot is starting to find it hard, to come up with unique kits, that fit the system. And that's fault of the system. It should be Riots goal, to make their game engine as flexible and extendable as possible. Sounds like a lot of work for one champ, but it will help Riot in the long run.

TurquoiseYoshiNov 3, 20162 votes

Because that logic means that we should completely delete Azir.

Voluug13Nov 3, 20162 votes

Azir needs a rework, not a deletion. Same deal that with Kalista's passive.

TyroneWatermelonNov 3, 20162 votes

Azir speaking of bugs

Rıots Bad ClientNov 3, 20161 votes

Can someone clear something.

Kalista deal only 90% of her damage on her passive, and she attacks slower when using her passive?

Because I think she should attack the same as her original attacks are supposed to do. But make it that Only after using an ability she can use her passive about 2/3 times. and then increase her cooldowns, :B (Maybe not using abilities... Maybe if her Q lands, W is proc'd or rend is used. )

The Yetii RiderNov 3, 20162 votes

Kalista has a reduced AD ratio and lower AS scalings because of her incredible synergy with the old Runaan's Hurricane (the one with 70% AS and no crit).

She used to rush BT into Runaan's and Riot made both items worse on her to force her to build crit like everyone else.

Rıots Bad ClientNov 4, 20161 votes

Thanks, forgot the changes to both the items. I like kali, she was cool. rip

ElqNov 3, 20161 votes

OK, let me start out as stating that I am a bronze II season 6 Kalista main with 100 games. I joined league after her nerfs stopped coming so I cant speak with fear about the broken state she used to be in. Now onto my thoughts. Kalista as a champion has a serious problem - her lore identity is very different than her gameplay identity. In the lore her identity is basically her W and her R. Her Gameplay identity is her passive and her E. I play her for her game play identity because I enjoy jumping around and ripping spears out of people. I do not believe this two sides can coexists and be balanced at most levels of play. However the side of kalista that should be removed if any is the lore identity. I know that many see her as an unhealthy champion and someone who "can never be balanced". This is kind of true with her current kit. I would hope that instead of working with interaction with the oath sworn we could work with her real identity. What i would do is nerf her autos even further and buff the damage of her rend while removing the reset on its cooldown when something is killed. I would like her passive to be buffed although after reading your comments I see that it may not be possible. What I'm getting at is kalista needs to be a high skill-cap adc which relies on kitting and the damage of rend With the lack of rend's reset I would hope that the cooldown would be kept the same or perhaps, Depending on the damage of the revisited rend maybe increased. This would mean that she could be punished for a bad rend and she couldn't just load a minion up with spears to get easy trades. Honestly for this next part remember that I am a kalista main and I acknowledge that this will be biased. For he Q I would like two things (both of which are a little unreasonable) I would like straight 100% AD scaleings with no bonus damage. Now to counter this I would like the spear to carry out all current functions but also have a chance to crit based on the skill's level and reset the cool down of rend on a champion kill. This seems overpowered because it negates the opportunity to take advantage of the missed damage on rend - However killing a champion with this skill is not easy and would add another element of skill into her kit. Honestly I have no idea what her other abilities would be, maybe a steroid for her jump or something...

If you actually read all of this I thank you, Please feel free to tell me where my ideas are stupid. [slayer-jinx-wink]

The Yetii RiderNov 3, 20162 votes

I mean, all of that is fine but this thread is discussing Kalista's passive and how buggy it is. It's not so much about balance as it is that the passive breaks CC, stasis and the game in general and Riot hasn't been able to fix it in over a year.

it be lìke thatNov 3, 20161 votes

lost me at bronze 2 tbh

GULAG 4 UNov 4, 20161 votes

"I am diemond so if i tell u 2 build muramena on aatrox u shuld do it even if dat bronz kid tells u 2 go RH into PD, Fuk u bronz kid"

it be lìke thatNov 4, 20161 votes

i mean maybe? but if you are going to talk about a high skill cap champions kit, dont start off with "im nearly the lowest tier possible"

ElqNov 4, 20161 votes

Hey at least I'm honest. I gave the disclaimer because I am in essentially the lowest tier. I am not pretending to be a good player but I thought my opinions as someone who still maines the champion are relevant.