Prepare for Vengeance: Kalista is Unleashed

Kalista, the Spear of Vengeance is ready to terrorize the PH server.

If you’re like us, then you’ve been anticipating Kalista’s arrival since her initial announcement. There’s been no new additions to the AD Carry role in over a year (not since Jinx in October 2013) and getting one with a slew of new mechanics is just icing on the cake. Kalista is being touted as a team-centric ADC, so much so that she can’t unlock the full potential of her kit without an ally. That and she’s a spear-throwing specter and that just looks awesome.

We’re sure that by now you’ve already seen what Kalista can do. You’ve either seen videos, played against her, with her, or using her. If not, you can check out the overview of her stats and skills on the League of Legends wikia. Be wary though as the price of Kalista’s power does come with a heavy price, if her lore is to be believed. You’ll need more than a simple overview if you want to be successful at playing Kalista so let’s go a little more in-depth with the Spear of Vengeance.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

+ High mobility and kiting potential with Martial Poise

+ Strong burst between Pierce and Rend

+ Relatively safe laning with the help of Sentinel

+ Can initiate fights along with her Oathsworn

Cons:

– Medium to short range for damage and average DPS

– Very steep learning curve, largely due to her passive

– Vulnerable to attack speed debuffs as this directly affects her kiting

– Requires a good level of communication between you and your team

Tips and Tricks

Here we’ll discuss a few things that you can use to improve your game, as well as some neat things you can do with Kalista’s. For the sake of order, we’ll discuss these under each portion of her kit.

Martial Poise

It’s rare that a champion relies so heavily on their passive to be effective. Sure you have your Akali, your Rengar and those like Gnar, but Kalista’s passive is one you both have to rely on and actively practice.

The two biggest things to note about Martial Poise is that her attacks cannot be cancelled. The long wind up time also means that in the laning phase, you could potentially lock yourself in your attack animation and open yourself up to harass or engages if you’re not conservative with your clicking.

Aside from frequency, there’s the subject of aiming. As your attack speed ramps up, it may get increasingly difficult to constantly dash to where you need to go, be it forward for chasing, sideways for dodging skillshots or backwards for kiting. The only solution is to practice and familiarize yourself with the cadence of your attacks.

Bonus warning: Kalista’s armor at level 1 is tied for the lowest among AD Carries in the game (along with Vayne) and her armor per level is only .1 higher. This means she’s extra vulnerable, especially during the early game. Having a good grasp of Martial Poise will be your best, and in most cases, only workaround for this potential weakness.

Pierce

Pierce is as close to AD Nidalee poking as you can get. If you’re used to throwing a Nidalee Q, then this spell is exactly the same. However, there are a few more things you can do with Pierce.

One, Pierce will transfer stacks of  Rend to the next enemy unit in its path if it deals the killing blow. One useful way to surprise your opponent in lane is to load up a siege minion with a large amount of rend stacks, then line up a Pierce to transfer all of it onto the target of your choice. It’s a nice way to surprise the enemy duo with a chunk of damage.

Two, Pierce is your free range mobility tool. Normally, you could only use Martial Poise while attacking someone, but Pierce allows you to dash without anything nearby. Use Pierce in almost any situation where you need to move around the map. You can use it in your base to get out of your Summoning Platform quicker. You can also use it as a free dodge if say, a Morgana bind, Lux laser or Xerath R were to hit you from long range.

The most interesting use of it would probably be its ability to get you over walls. Sure, you can do this by attacking someone, but for the times when no target is around, Pierce can be used to traverse the same thin walls a Graves Quickdraw or Lucian Relentless Pursuit can.

Not sure which walls those are? Watch the video below:

Sentinel

There are two parts to this ability, but both are fairly simple. The first is called Soul-Marked. If you or your Oathsworn attack the same target within 1.5 seconds, you deal a nice chunk of %HP magic damage. There’s even a small indicator for either player if the other has attacked a target, alerting your partner to the target of choice.

If the Oathsworn deals the killing blow to a marked target, the kill is credited to Kalista, be it lowly minion or a champion, or even Baron Nashor. Normally, this would be a good thing, but for support players packing a Relic Shield and any of its upgrades, Kalista’s ability actually overrides the item’s execute mechanic, making it hard to use your stacks without coordinating targets with Kalista. One of the many reasons Kalista players need good teamwork!

The other part of this ability is the actual Sentinel, the ghostly ward that will patrol an area for Kalista. While it’s tempting to just cast these little ghosts to sweep up and down the river, they’re actually best used when not roaming in a straight line. No matter what the terrain, the ghosts will try their best to go from point A to B, so you can use your Sentinel to scout inside Dragon pit, jungle camps and crucial brush spots. Bonus points for giving your enemies Pac-Man flashbacks.

Rend

There’s nothing too complicated about Rend. If you’re used to stacking a debuff onto an enemy with Twitch, then this should be very familiar to you.

One thing to note however would be Rend’s low mana cost, which is 30 at all levels. This, coupled with a cooldown reset mechanic if Rend kills a unit, makes for interesting uses.

One use was covered in Kalista’s champion spotlight, wherein you load an enemy champion with stacks, then attack and execute a nearby minion to simultaneously get the harass off and refresh your cooldown.

Another would be for chasing. While it’s easy to think of Rend as an execute because each additional spear stack multiplies the damage dealt, the slow aspect of the skill cannot be ignored. Constantly refreshing your cooldowns by killing minions while keeping 1 or 2 stacks onto your desired target can keep them slowed down for an amazingly long time. Best used when closing out a kill through an incoming enemy minion wave.

Lastly, and this one is a bit obvious, Rend’s stacks are only gated by your attack speed. This means that with enough stacks on something, Rend’s damage multiplier can go in the thousands of your % AD. Use this in tandem with your jungler to add an extra layer of control to your Dragon and Baron control. With enough AD and stacks, your Rend can outdamage Smite rather easily.

Special Mention: Fate’s Call

There’s a lot to talk about when considering Kalista’s ultimate, which is why it deserves its own section. This is the one ability that directly hinges on your teamwork as without good communication with your team, you don’t have an ultimate to use!

The first order of business would be selecting a good Oathsworn ally. Sure, the most obvious thing would be to link yourself to your support, as you’ll get the most out of your lane harass with  the Soul-Marked %HP damage, but what if your support wouldn’t want to be closer to the fray? Janna without her Monsoon up would hate to have to be thrown into a group of enemies, same for an ult-less Lulu or Soraka in any circumstance.

Consider your support first and then decide if it’s worth using the Black Spear on them. Here are some of the best candidates from the pool of ‘traditional’ supports. All of which are pretty self-explanatory, but numbers 1 and 3 have the added bonus of helping Kalista’s slower laning phase via healing.

1. Alistar
2. Leona
3. Taric

If your support isn’t an ideal choice, then making a jungler your Oathsworn is a worthwhile option. For one, it’s easier to know when you want to activate it, it has the potential to bypass a good number of wards and it has devastating results with junglers such as Amumu, Dr. Mundo or even Master Yi.

Next let’s talk about usage. The most obvious thing would be to cast Fate’s Call on your Oathsworn to initiate a fight. While this is what you’ll be using the ability for in most cases, don’t be afraid to blow the cooldown for other things. One would be to save your Oathsworn. Pay that Thresh back in kind for all the nice lanterns he offered you. Linked to a jungler? Give your teammate a big alley-oop over a wall to chase down some kills. No flash necessary.

Now for a bit of fun. Should you feel like experimenting in normals or other game modes, let us introduce you to something we like to call Pokémon Trainer Kalista. Here are some fun combinations between you and your Oathsworn you can try out on your quest to be the very best that no one ever was.

Graveler, I choose you!

Pikachu! Use Volt Tackle!

Go get ’em, Rapidash!

We hope you have fun spearing your opponents on the Fields of Justice. Remember though, that while you do need skill and mechanics to play Kalista properly, good teamwork is equally essential to her success, so get friendly before you get deadly.

Pro tip: Did you know that Kalista has some unique interactions with certain champions if she’s bonded with them? For example, if Skarner ults someone and Kalista ults skarner, the target is dragged all the way back to Kalista — a 1400 range pull!

Here’s another example of the shenanigans you can do with Kalista:

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