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Should Kalista and/or Master Yi [damage types] be changed?

SanKakU·8/22/2018, 1:26:57 AM·12 votes·26,438 views

Kalista could potentially have true damage on her W. Or if you think Master Yi is fine, on her E, maybe? Master Yi currently has true damage in his kit. A lot of it, especially with in his inventory. Meanwhile, Kalista is doing physical damage with her E which gets boosted by when she has it.

Kalista, a champion with zero AP scaling, is awkwardly holding magic damage in her kit. There is precedence for this. Zed is another champion with no AP scaling which also has magic damage in his kit(it's his passive in case you're wondering where). There are more like that IIRC, but this is about Kalista and Master Yi, not Zed or other champions.

So, what do you guys think would happen if Master Yi's true damage got changed to magic damage? Or if Kalista's magic damage got changed to true damage? A lot of people think Kalista is bad. Would they like her more if she had true damage? I'm not sure. I know that as Master Yi's opponent, I would like him a lot more if he wasn't dealing true damage. [slayer-jinx-wink]

I would argue that working with true damage is toxic and should be removed from the game. I'm neutral about Kalista's magic damage being changed to true personally, although I'm against the idea of changing her physical damage on E to true, and I'm feeling strongly that Master Yi should be changed. But what does everyone else think? Do you think just one of them should be changed, or both, or neither?

46 Comments

DorkunedAuras8/22/2018, 4:54:50 AM17 votes

People think kalista is bad, but they're fine with that. Kalista's design is so inherently toxic, at least in regards to creating insanely hard counters, that she's on the list of champs that's never allowed to be good.

Personally, as a melee main, I would be happy to never see a Kalista again

Tychusfindlay9188/22/2018, 1:52:21 PM4 votes

Changing Yi's E to a resistable damage type wouldn't change the toxicity inherent in his purely auto attack kit, it would just be a gigantic nerf that he'd probably never be able to overcome without an insane buff to counterbalance it.

SlashStriker8/22/2018, 10:14:04 AM2 votes

Before Yi's rework he had Bonus AD on his E which is doubled on active (up to 70) and since it's bonus AD it also improves crit

When Riot reworked Yi they stated that they want YI to be a thread in all stages of the game so they gave him True Damage on E which cannot crit any longer and reduced the duration from 10 seconds on E to 5 seconds

Automated Riven8/22/2018, 6:30:49 PM2 votes

Kalista has never had true damage.

I don't understand what your suggesting. That when kalista and her othsworn deal true damage when they attack the same target? If so then that is a hard hard no. The reason it deal magic damage is because it isn't supposed to be particularly good, however it's there to give bonuses for her and her ally working together. But if she is deal 10% max happy true damage that's over the top broken. I would rather see the invisible power removed from her kit so she is balanceable

Glaedr8/22/2018, 12:33:25 PM1 votes

Kalista's biggest problem is how well her entire kit synergizes with coordinated teamplay. Something as simple as 20 true damage on her W at level 3 instantly becomes overwhelming when paired with a support who actually understands her kit and knows how to utilize it with his own, which is why Kalista Thresh was one of the strongest bot lanes ever. She needs changes, but anything paired with another team mate makes her too strong in high ranks and pro play while being next to nothing in lower ranks. It's up to Riot to decide what to prioritize though.

Yi is completely fine considering he loses pretty much any fight to bruisers and has a one way trip to do damage. He only seems insane when he's cleaning up with resets.

Meep Man8/22/2018, 5:13:17 PM1 votes

The issue with Yi is he is a melee carry that has no way of helping his weakness against CC that a melee carry inherently is weak against. His only way of helping against CC is against slows, which is the weakest form of CC. If he is facing a team with strong stuns or displacement, his input is next to nothing. Therefore, the input he IS able to put out actually should be high and hard to play around because Yi is a champion with no way of working around his weaknesses. If they are present, he is just screwed. Therefore, I think Yi should keep his true damage because its the only reason he is played right now, and even now he is only really played in casual play. The only time Yi ever sees any form of competitive play is when he is so overtuned or a strategy causes him to deal so much damage that he can actually reasonably kill someone before reaction is even possible, except with Yi its with true damage unlike Assassins like Rengar who deal entirely physical damage and you can at least build against it or use damage reduction mechanics to try and preemptively reduce his damage dealt.

I don't really have a valid opinion on Kalista because I haven't played her much, played with her much, or against her much.

Tahminatrix 8/22/2018, 10:02:30 PM1 votes

item 3071 Kalista has been a thing.

ModValeeva8/23/2018, 2:01:57 AM1 votes

Guinsoo's has never been a true core item on Kalista for her to warrant such things.

Her core items have always been about BORK + Hurricane, Guinsoo's is only a 2% pickrate item. 2%

This tiny number doesn't make it so she should be changed in the slightest. Also, the AP scaling on Guinsoo's isn't enough and generally Kalista falls off before she'd get it as a 3rd item.

LatetotheRace8/24/2018, 2:41:03 PM1 votes

I honestly don't believe that adding true damage to a champion is safe or well thought out, nor do I even believe that it's a valid solution to a problem. From my experience, kallista is just a champion with a poor kit right now, and she needs fundamental changes to make her balanced, Not just true damage. Master Yi on the other hand seems to utterly spew true damage, especially with conqueror, and as such at the end of the game true damage often makes up 30-40% of his overall damage to champions and this climbs to 50-60% against tanks which is absurd. As there is no real counterplay to true damage, I would even move to have both sources removed and master Yi get a VGU that adds a bit more mechanical skill to his damage output. That could just be me, but that's my ideal for both of them.

agac42349/8/2018, 9:26:18 PM1 votes

you forgot anout blue kayn. his passive does bonus magic dmg rather then physical dmg

Electro5228/22/2018, 1:44:39 AM1 votes

Approved!

Alzon9/10/2018, 2:47:53 PM1 votes

As a tank player, I believe a Yi who builds on-hit deserves to be able to shred tanks - but it should come at the cost of doing much less damage to squishies than a raw AD, lethality, or even crit build. His E active could either convert a portion of his damage to true damage like Conqueror, or it does on-hit %HP true damage instead of flat. I also believe Alpha Strike should have a lower base damage at higher ranks and a higher AD ratio.

I don’t see Kalista often enough to comment on her, I’m afraid.

doodlebob6668/22/2018, 2:33:10 AM1 votes

Yi would have his tank killing capabilities nerfed drastically from the damage type shift, since he wouldn't get any magic pen unless it is valuable enough to get a wits end and even then that is more effective vs squishies.

Kalista would benefit from the shift to true damage, since 15% max health magic damage is reduced to almost half of it's value by a tank buying spirirt visage, so their is no point in maxing it over q, since the damage is not only not reliable but also not incredibly significant, if it becomes true damage though she probably would max it second. If it becomes true damage she would be very overbearing in pro play again since she gets a 15% max health true damage burst that could help take down tanks if she synergies with her support.

NiamhNyx8/22/2018, 2:52:11 AM1 votes

I dont even want to think of a kali with true 10% max hp true damage. That would scare the living shit out of me. I can take a Yi, but that jumpy little bitch? no thanks.

LuaDotExe8/22/2018, 5:33:57 AM1 votes

From what I've seen, Kalista and Zed's case is different from that of Master Yi's (plus, it'd be weird to build for physical damage and then start getting more magical damage, unless it's a hybrid scaling), so I'll discuss that point rather than Yi's.

Kalista and Zed's passive magical damage doesn't scale with AD; if you think about it, as well, they don't build any magic pen, meaning it's kind of just a flat value with super consistent damage. Kha'Zix's passive, however, DOES scale with AD, and does magical damage. Why would it make sense for this to be the case?

Well, we get into the case of overcoming resistances, but not in a way that involves true damage. Changing your damage type to the other in a specific case allows you to bypass more resistance (building MR for Kha, Zed, and Kalista don't make sense), but it's still not a super significant chunk of their damage (unless you're like me and go Dark Harvest Kha'Zix, in which case, congrats! You ALSO have earned a bad person award!) and doesn't really warrant it. I'll cut to the chase: if this is to overcome resistances, why isn't this true damage?

Well, let's think about this in terms of a switch, which can be "on" or "off," and determines whether or not we want this to overcome resistances. If it's "on," we say "okay it's true damage," and if it's "off," we say "okay it's your primary damage." But what if we don't want it to overcome resistances to the degree that true damage does? In that case, it makes plenty of sense to put the switch right down the middle. TL;DR: it's more-or-less true damage to squishies, and tanks can, for lack of better wording, tank it better. It's a weird space between "does" and "does not" for overcoming resistances.

In the case of Master Yi, as a Yi main, it would feel really out-of-place for it to be magical damage; it makes up a significant amount of his damage, and is there for the purpose of circumventing resistances. Whereas the secondary damage typing doesn't make up a significant part of Kalista's and Zed's damage output, the secondary damage typing makes up a large portion of Master Yi's (approximately a quarter on average, if I were to venture a guess). TL;DR again: Master Yi's true damage is all the way up on the "overcomes resistances" option because it's a larger portion of his damage, more significant, and more important.

Not really a case or a point, but I thought that I'd mention that what something like the lack of a scaling does is create a way to keep item dependency under control, as well making something that's going to always be dealing more-or-less the same amount of damage (in terms of "how quickly can I kill someone"), no matter where you are in the game.