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The problems with Kayle, in a nutshell

mi ramfan·5/19/2014, 7:38:17 PM·2 votes·595 views

1.She's just absolutely terrible for melees to lane against. That's not a problem as long as she's mid lane, but there's no reason she has to stay mid when her matchups are so much better top. Her ranged autoattacks from Righteous Fury allow her to easily poke melee top laners WHILE shoving them under tower and potentially not even drawing minion aggro, and her Q is a very strong counter-engage against most melees.

2.After level 6, there isn't much anybody can do to her because of Intervention's cooldown. It starts at 90 seconds and scales to 60; with CDR it can be as low as 54/45/36 seconds. What this means is that it is almost impossible to fight Kayle with her ult off cooldown. Every single time you fight her after level 6, her ult WILL be up, and she WILL use it to get 2 seconds of invincibility against you. Unless you're extremely far ahead of her (unlikely given her already strong pre-6 game), it's almost impossible to kill her, even with a gank. And if you lose a fight because she ulted, it'll be back up by the time you both get back into lane.

3.She has all the benefits of being ranged without the drawbacks. She can AA poke and safely waveclear like a ranged champion, but also has the sustain and utility of a melee bruiser.

4.Her kit has no counterplay in it. Everything is point and click. If there WAS any counterplay, it would be "never go in range of her empowered autoattacks" and "just never fight her", which isn't counterplay at all. It's just a way to lose lane to her slightly slower.

I'm glad she's not good right now, because if she was she'd be a problem.

edit: god this forum's list formatting is awful

4 Comments

Cosmic Warper5/19/2014, 10:31:29 PM1 votes

She is good. She's just not seen in competitive play since lulu and soraka outshine her, while leblanc counters her as lb can just burst her without giving kayle any time to ult herself. I agree that her ult cooldown is way too short for its utility. It needs to be longer, scaling at 120/100/80, but increasing the duration by .5 seconds at all ranks. This way she has to be competent enough to use it at an important time or else it will be off cd for a long time early. Her W and E are fine, however that Q still needs to be changed. The amount of sticking power Kayle receives from her Q and W are enormous, allowing her to output massive sustained damage even as the target is fleeing. It really should be a skill shot, however should be buffed nearly back to its old strength to retain its reward. So much utility is packed within her Q and W it's a bit crazy; Q procs her passive, slows for a large amount ( 55% at max rank for 3 seconds is crazy), and nukes as a targeted ability, while her W heals and speeds up for a large amount for 3 seconds. Her W isn't nearly as bad as her Q as its cooldown is relatively long and weak to other heals in the game coughNIDALEEcough.

Nameless Voice5/20/2014, 1:57:33 AM1 votes

The biggest problem with Kayle, in my opinion, is her waveclear.

Her E has an extremely low mana cost and allows her to kill an entire wave of minions in almost no time while getting every CS. In mid lane, most other laners have no hope of pushing back against that. If they try to use spells to push back, they'll just run out of mana. Eventually, they're forced to last-hit under their tower (something mid-laners are generally the worst at of any lane) - which is very harsh if they happen to be mêlée and Kayle is beating on them. In the mean time, Kayle is free to farm wraiths or roam.

It's also very hard to punish her for her pushing with ganks, both because of her W and R, and because her enemy mid-laner will usually be stuck behind a huge wave of minions with little mana.

But I think your point 4 sums it up fairly well. Her kit has very little counterplay. Too many point-and-click abilities and not enough weaknesses.

Rubitonabuilding5/20/2014, 11:31:03 AM1 votes

yeah I hate kayle. I will say however that there is a counterplay: CC. If you can manage to silence, fear, or stun her before she ults, you win.

Proxyminers5/20/2014, 6:13:58 PM1 votes

Tryndamere wins that battle because his ult is 2 seconds longer than hers. Kayle is needed for top so Riot doesn't force people to play melee only top.

Right now, Kayle is the only range top AA base champion. Ryze goes there but Ryze has a lot of problems; one being no escape.

Teemo and Jayce are toxic top players as they bring nothing to the game outside of gimmick game play.