[Champion Rework, Full Concept] Kayle, the Judicator

Forewords:

What's iconic about Kayle is arguably her E and her R. My main issue with Kayle's current design is her dependence on her E. Her entire champion design is based on a melee character that can become ranged, but the entirety of her kit doesn't really allow for a melee champion, meaning while her E is offline Kayle cannot really function. The ultimate doesn't bring much interesting design and limited counterplay with it. It all comes down to timing it against a large burst or simply postponing lethal damage for a final push to win. Both are also elements I find as unhealthy design for her character. This rework concept focuses on keeping the melee turned ranged aspect, but through a different method that hopefully makes it more dynamic and allow Kayle some additional play patterns. ' '

Rework Concept

Generally Kayle's concept is slightly changed from this holy/divine being to be more an angelic being of fiery wrath. Instead of an awkward melee champion that needs to active their ranged juice to be anyway useful, I find it more appealing with a more dynamic melee champion that eventually turns into a ranged champion. Remember all numbers are subject to balance changes and only represent the idea of proportions between her kit elements. Having no idea how proportionally powerful an element is will likely make it harder to evaluate the concept as a whole.

Passive: Fiery Temper Dealing damage with basic attacks and abilities apply a stack of Fiery Temper on the target, lasting for 5 seconds on minions or 10 seconds on non-minion targets. Each nearby enemy minion or non-large, non-epic monster afflicted with Fiery Temper, grants Kayle 5% attack speed. Each nearby enemy champion, large monster or epic monster afflicted with Fiery Temper, grants Kayle 15% attack speed. Maximum bonus: 50% attack speed.

Ignition: Upon applying the 4th stack of Fiery Temper on a target, Kayle consumes all stacks on the target and ignites her blade in holy flames, dealing 60-77 (based on level) (+20% Attack Damage +30% Ability Power) magic damage to the target and nearby enemies and applying 1 stack of Fiery Temper to all enemies hit. Kayle's blade is ignited for 10 seconds, granting Kayle 200/300/400 range (at level 1 / 5 / 9 - for a total of 325/425/525 range) and causing her basic attacks to deal an additional 10 - 30 (10 + 2 per level up to level 11) (+30% bonus Attack Damage +20% ability power) magic damage on-hit.

Trivia:

• You can repeatedly trigger Ignition on the same target, but each trigger puts the target back to 1 stack of Fiery Temper.
• If multiple targets trigger Ignition by the same ability or attack, they only take damage once and are only applied 1 stack of Fiery Temper after their stacks are consumed by Ignition.
• The splash damage of Ignition can cause another nearby target to trigger Ignition for a chain reaction.
• Reigniting will refresh the duration of Ignition.
• For a visual representation, the target could have a small semi-crescent bar of a fiery design above their health bar that is divided in 3, and at 3 stacks turns more vibrant in color and signifies the next application will trigger Ignition. ' '

Q: Reckoning

Mana cost: 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 Cooldown: 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 Range: Blade's reach: 250. Flames on press: 600. Flames on hold: 800.

Kayle swings her blade in an arc in the target direction, dealing 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 (+60% Attack Damage, +10% Ability Power) physical damage and applying on-hit effects to enemies hit and charging up for another blow, Blade held high.

Press: Kayle immediately releases the charged up blow in the direction of the cursor, swinging her Blade in another arc, spewing flames from the tip of her Blade in a cone outside the Blade's reach. Enemies caught in the Blade's arc are dealt 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 (+60% Attack Damage, +10% Ability Power) physical damage and are applied on-hit effects. Enemies caught in the flames are dealt 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 220 (+80% bonus Attack Damage, +40% Ability Power) magic damage and are applied an additional stack of Fiery Temper.

Hold: Kayle charges her Blade up from a red hue to a bright white over 0,5 seconds, held for up to 2 seconds. Releasing the ability early will apply the Press effect. Releasing the ability when the Blade is bright white will cause Kayle to swiftly perform a downward strike, spewing flames from the tip of her Blade in a narrow line. Enemies caught in the Blade's reach are dealt 15 / 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 (+80% Attack Damage, +20% Ability Power) physical damage, 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 / 110 (+40% bonus Attack Damage, +40% Ability Power) magical damage and are applied on-hit effects. Enemies caught in the flames will take 72 / 120 / 168 / 216 / 264 (+120% bonus Attack Damage, + 60% Ability Power) magical damage and are applied an additional stack of Fiery Temper.

Kayle can move freely and use Embrace of Wings while casting Reckoning.

Trivia:

• Hitting an enemy with the first swing applies a stack of Fiery Temper.
• Hitting an enemy with the flames of the second swing applies 2 stacks of Fiery Temper.
• Hitting an enemy with both the first swing and the flames of the second will apply 3 stacks in total.
• The charged attack's line speed is somewhat similar in speed to Victor's E. (Wording may need to be changed up on Reckoning to be more compact, I made this division to hopefully make the effect a lot clearer.) ' '

W: Heaven's Judgment

Mana cost: 50 Cooldown: 8 Range: 700

Kayle calls for Heaven's Judgment on an enemy target, dealing 50 / 100 / 150 / 200 / 250 (+50% Ability Power) magic damage. If the target is already afflicted with Fiery Temper, the target is slowed by 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 / 55% for 3 seconds and if Kayle has Ignition the target is also stunned for 1 second.

Trivia:

• If Heaven's Judgment triggers Ignition the target is stunned as well. ' '

E: Embrace of Wings

Mana cost: 60 Cooldown: 16 / 14 / 12 / 10 / 8 Range: 600

Passive: Whenever Kayle applies the first stack of Fiery Temper or triggers Ignition on an enemy, she is healed by 18 / 26 / 34 / 42 / 60 (+10% Ability Power). The heal is reduced by 50% against minions and non-large, non-epic monsters.

Active: Kayle dashes toward a target location. If there is an enemy champion or monster within a short range (500) of the targeted location, Kayle shields herself by 65 / 110 / 155 / 200 / 245 (+50% Ability Power) for 5 seconds. If there is an allied champion within a short range (400) of the targeted location, Kayle shields the allied champion with least health by 65 / 110 / 155 / 200 / 245 (+50% Ability Power) for 5 seconds. ' '

R: Heavenly Inferno

Mana cost: 100 Cooldown: 140 / 110 / 80 Range: 1200 - 1600 Area of effect: 400 radius

First cast: Kayle channels for 0,5 seconds, readying her wings, and then takes flight into the sky, becoming untargetable. Kayle then channels for up to 2 seconds, increasing Heavenly Inferno's range over 1 second.

Second cast: Kayle swoops down on a target location in a cascade of flames, dealing 100 / 200 / 300 (+40% bonus Attack Damage, +80% Ability Power) magic damage to all enemies within the area and Igniting her Blade.

Trivia:

• I expect some kind of voice line used when Kayle starts the channel to fly up, so nearby enemies are alerted that she might swoop down on them shortly, similar to how Nocturne's ultimate has a laughter that alerts enemies (if the black screen edge didn't already). ' '

General stat changes: Because Kayle doesn't actively switch her range on, she needs a statline that reminds more of a fighter than a marksman to compensate her more risky playstyle. However as the game progress she will more naturally swap over to ranged combat, so her stat growth doesn't need to resemble fighters as closely. Her health is actually quite high, especially for a character that basically is ranged. Her base armor could do with a little scoop from 26,9 - 86,4 to 29,8 scaling up to 89,3. Magic Resist to follow melees, 32,1 - 53,4. That should keep her somewhat durable as a melee character that needs to activate her passive to enjoy the safety of most ADCs. Her base AD could do with a slight increase as well from 51 - 88,4 (51 + 2,2 per level) to 61 - 101,8 (61 + 2,4 per level) - that's actually still low for an ADC at lvl 18 but her passive helps out with the gap. ' ' '

Design choices

Overall concept: My primary objective was to change Kayle from this awkward melee that wants to be ranged, into a more dynamic melee champion that can take some heat and then activate her ranged state and retreat to a safer distance to capitalize on the safety most ADCs enjoy. It also present some additional build choices as you could build Kayle as more a bruiser/fighter variant, given the mobility and damage her kit grants her.

Passive: I wanted to get rid of Kayle's dependency on activating E to be able to do anything meaningful. By putting the activation on a passive it also introduces some counterplay, where enemies can actively try to avoid Kayle activating her passive. To recognize and compensate this vulnerability, Kayle has increased base stats as well as additional measures to keep herself from getting killed and to help activate her passive. I tacked in the attack speed buff to grant Kayle some kind of bonus before her Ignition triggers (and the true power of the passive is unlocked) and tied it in with the stacks afflicting nearby enemies so it increases in performance the more nearby enemies there is - and that Kayle has damaged.

Prior to a teamfight, Kayle can trigger the passive by stacking on minions, monsters or hitting Q and W on champions. If the fight breaks out while Kayle's passive is not active and she needs the range, I included an auto-trigger in her ultimate.

The Ignition portion of the passive also presents a form of wave clear as stacking up on one minion deals AoE damage and applies stacks, making it easier to reach the next trigger and so forth. So once the stone starts rolling on a minion wave you pop a lot of AoE explosions. It also presents some interesting puzzle gameplay. If you stack up a wave of minions with 1, 2, and 2 at 3 stacks, hitting one of the 3 stack minions when your lane opponent wants to lasthit, you can chain up Ignition explosions - in this case for theoretical infinite damage (if we assume the minions survive) as the chains keeps on triggering new explosions that in turn triggers new. However the passive only lasts 5 seconds on minions, so it's quite a setup you need to make in a short amount of time. As multiple triggers of Ignition from the same damage source don't stack, you actually need to set up for these chains which generally means it wont be something that happens often.

I ain't married to the idea of chain reactions, so if the balance teams deem it too powerful or too confusing if it happens by accident, then it could possibly be changed that Ignition cannot cause other triggers of Ignition but merely deal the damage and help the stacking. '

Q, Reckoning: The champion's bread and butter-ability that helps wave-clear, stacking passive and generally loaded with damage. The ability presents a choice for the classical Kayle build between auto-attacking and spending a little time on casting it. Having both a short-range zone and a long-range zone makes it possible to introduce further counterplay and outplay potential into her kit. In general you don't want to be hit by her long-range zone and want to engage close in on Kayle to reduce her damage. If Kayle foresees this, she can charge the Q up and deal heavy close-range damage in a narrow line. The charged up Q also presents a sniping-tool, either for farming or poking without pushing the lane. Because you can move and cast E when casting Q, you can set up the damage by dashing backwards so enemies get into the flame-territory. '

W, Heaven's Judgment: Kayle kinda needed a CC ability and this ties in her passive to reap it. Nothing fancy, could also see changes as long as the replacement provides her some CC. '

E, Embrace of Wings: The mobility that makes her melee form less risky, as she can effectively dash in, get shielded, Q, W, and AA to pop passive for range and then disengage as she hits. It can very well be used in tandem with her ultimate, to swoop in with R, Q and then E out while passive is active from R. I toyed around with the idea of letting her have 2 charges of the dash and let it be shorter range, but then I figured she would become extremely good at kiting, which wasn't the idea. Another idea was to reset the cooldown the very first time Ignition triggers in combat - so you could dash in, AA, Q, W, AA to pop passive and then E out on refresh. To keep Kayle in lane she got a passive heal that also can do a lot of work in a teamfight, giving the right circumstances. Since it only triggers whenever Kayle first applies FIery Temper on a target or when triggering Ignition, there's usually a natural desire to leave your lane opponent alone for a little while to re-trigger the heal if you cannot pressure your lane opponent for repeatedly triggers of Ignition. The way Embrace works could also make Kayle a potential contender for botlane and especially for jungle, as landing near an allied champion and an enemy champion will grant both the ally and Kayle respectively a shield. '

R, Heavenly Inferno: The ultimate has 4 general purposes:

• AoE damage tool that helps stacking
• Chase after people, dive onto the enemy's backline, or ganking
• Defensive retreat
• A sure activation of the passive if Kayle struggles to trigger it normally

In most situations you cannot get more than 2 of the above. It's also a large distance "dash" that can actually be used in combat unlike someone like Pantheon or Fiddlesticks that have to use them prior to entering the fight. I figure it provides choices and can serve different purposes based on your build, as this kit might invite different builds, like a bruiser build, a heavier hybrid build or a full AD build. ' ' '

The concept presently might not be the most polished but I hope it can guide a path for how the Kayle rework could take form. I've seen a few other suggestions on the boards and I think Kayle needs to have her concept polished a bit more and bringing in more counterplay and choices but not completely change what the character is.