Will she keep the helmet?
Half the community loves it, half the community despises it.
If it stays her base will feel pointless vs her skins. If it goes it won't matter because there won't be a comparison.
Her helmet (and full armor) is the most iconic part of her appearance beside her wings. I don't see them removing it.
half the community despises it.
Where? People barely even mention Kayle, let alone talk about how much they despise her helmet. I've never seen anyone express dislike towards that part of Kayle's design since the game's release, honestly.
Hopefully they add a toggle.
With Swain I called them removing the mask (Although my logic was quickly countered when Pyke came out), but Kayle's a lot more enigmatic. I think they'll keep the helmet since it's her most "iconic" piece, keeping in mind that she and Morgana were practically the poster girls of LOL in some of the earlier trailers.
She will most likely keep the helmet, at least in the early game, but Riot says she will unlock her Ascended form, like Kayn unlocking Shadow Assassin Kayn, and her look will most likely change when she enters late game.
Huh... if Kayle Ascends in her late game... what is going to happen to Morgana? What's the opposite of Ascension? ...A Darkin?
I would say the existence of a legacy skin called Unmasked Kayle (which I own) pretty much demands that she has a mask, or at least that her default skin has a mask.
*Inserts toggle function.
Half the people liked Aatrox's banner wings, half the peopled hated them... they added it to him as a toggle. I'm sure Kayle's helmet will function in the same way. In my opinion, her armor and helmet are too important to the theme to remove.
No helmet or toggle for the purists. Putting a helmet on a character that obscures the face, makes it harder to emphasize with them because the human brain is wired to recognize facial expression. That is why mooks and Stormtroopers have helmets, because they aren't as important as the main cast Luke and his crew.
Riot knows that putting a full helm on is a bad idea if they want to push character in their new champions. (Good idea if the plan is to just have a cool character which was the old modus operandi for league)
Look at Pantheons updated splash art. They made the black area around the inside of his helmet lighter and now you can make out his facial features.
Maybe Mordekaiser will keep a helmet though. It adds to the Sauron factor. In his case they can make the helmet look metal as fuck and that will be his personality.
