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Nov 5, 2014

Kalista, the Spear of Vengeance Revealed!

42 comments

After a late day at work, check out the details on Kalista, the new champion hitting the rift! Apparently she will be a marks(wo)man type champion with some fairly complex skills.

She will choose a single champion to synergize with (the support) in order to unlock all her power, and will require some synergy to pull off all her fancy moves.

She looks to be a high skillcap champion like many of CertainlyT's creations, and will join the likes of the following in his repertoire:
  • Darius;
  • Thresh;
  • Zed;
  • Zyra; and
  • Yasuo
Check out the official scoop below!
"Treacherously murdered, Kalista rose as a specter, twisted by the horrific power of the Shadow Isles. In death, she offers Runeterrans a proposition: surrender your soul to the Spear of Vengeance and she will exact retribution on your betrayers.

Items

The Black Spear 
Active: Kalista offers a pact to an allied champion, should they agree, the item is consumed and the pair are Soul-Bound for the remainder of the game. When accepted, the binding enables Soul-Marked, a passive on Sentinel, and allows Kalista to use Fate’s Call when she unlocks it.

Abilities


Passive: Martial Poise
Rather than cancelling the basic attack animation, a move order hops Kalista in the direction of the click after she completes her attack. Kalista leaps farther when moving away from her target.



Q: Pierce
Kalista hurls a spear, damaging the first enemy struck and adding a stack of Rend. Pierce also procs Martial Poise.



W: Sentinel
Passive: Soul-Marked—When Kalista and her bound ally attack a minion, monster or enemy champion at the same time, they deal bonus magic damage.
Active: Kalista commands a sentinel to keep watch over an area. The sentinel patrols back and forth in a line a few times. Vulnerable to attacks from behind, sentinels see in a cone in front of them and scream if they spot an enemy champion.



E: Rend
Kalista’s basic attacks and the spear from Pierce lodge in their target for a short time. Rend causes her to rip the spears from her enemies, slowing them and dealing increased damage for each spear rent from the target. Rend’s cooldown resets if it secures a kill on an enemy unit. The spears stack infinitely, only disappearing if Kalista fails to keep up her assault.



R: Fate’s Call
Kalista repositions her bound ally next to her, making them untargetable and disabling their spells. During Fate’s Call, Kalista’s Soul-Bound gains a new ability, which allows the Soul-Bound to dash in a target direction, knocking up enemies they strike.

This could potentially combo with some very unorthodox supports...

Gameplay



Kalista is a marksman who cooperates with her Soul-Bound to deal substantial sustained damage, access her full repertoire of abilities and wither her enemies under her relentless assault. Kalista’s potential is unlocked by solid communication and cooperation with allies rather than raw mechanical skill. While still capable in her own right, Kalista misses out on Soul-Marked's bonus damage and effective use of her ult without direct cooperation from her ally.

Laning

In lane, Kalista follows the familiar marksman pattern of farm and harass with one important difference: Martial Poise makes kiting part and parcel of her kit. With it, Kalista can reposition after every basic attack, hopping in and out of danger to attack opponents and gain superior positioning. Soul-Marked allows Kalista and her ally to speedily crush down each minion, forcing their opposition to farm under turret and nearly guaranteeing a level two ding ahead of their opponents. With the lane pushed, Kalista can send a Sentinel up the river to keep watch for incoming threats. This ability takes some vision pressure off her support, allowing both to spend less time at base and more time dictating the pace of the lane.

For trading, Kalista lands Pierce to proc Rend, poking with terrifying speed. While Kalista decides when to answer Fate’s Call, her Soul-Bound, often a support, ultimately decideswhere it’ll make its impact. If either Kalista or her Soul-Bound land significant crowd control on an enemy champion, Fate’s Call makes the perfect tool to damage and lock down enemies, setting Kalista up to sling the fatal spear.

Teamfights

Without massive range or a reliable escape, Kalista relies on backline positioning and attentive protection from her allies. Before any teamfight breaks out, Kalista should use Sentinel to try to spot out sneaky enemies on the edges of the fray. With the battle underway, Kalista metes out strong, consistent punishment with basic attacks, staying safe with precise management of Martial Poise. Given time and dependable peel, Kalista’s spears rocket from the backline of every skirmish and teamfight. The damage and stacks add up quick, making Kalista a decisive executor with Rend.

Fate’s Call

The ult’s versatility makes it good for peel, a wombo starter or a rescue for your Soul-Bound—used to its full potential, it can be all three. Against dive comps, a timely Fate’s Call stops a chase dead in its tracks and serves as a counter-engage for your team to follow up. If Kalista’s Soul-Bound is caught out, a quick ultimate spirits them to safety, burning whatever crowd control the enemies expended and offering the option of dis-or-re-engage. Brave Kalista players (and braver Soul-Bound) can kick off wombo-combos or follow up on a hard initiation, creating the space Kalista needs clean up the fight from the back lines

Synergy



Leona - the Radiant Dawn

Tanky supports like the Radiant Dawn are perfect for Fate’s Call. After being tossed into the fray by Kalista, Leona can hang onto Zenith Blade to zoom around teamfights applying crowd control where needed. Bonus points for proc-ing Sunlight and Soul-Marked at the same time.


Janna - the Storm's Fury

On face, it may not seem like a great idea to toss the fragile Janna into the enemy team, but Fate’s Call and Monsoon combine to split enemy teams asunder.


Malphite - Shard of the Monolith

Imagine Fate’s Call and Unstoppable Force smacking sequentially into the enemy team—the area of effect knockup double tap will win you most fights.

Struggles against:



Zyra - Rise of the Thorns

Kalista’s slow basic attack leaves her vulnerable to the lockdown of Grasping Roots. The Spear of Vengeance must carefully manage Martial Poise to survive this lane opponent.


Ezreal - the Prodigal Explorer

Ezreal’s kit dulls the edge of Kalista’s spears: He outpokes her with Mystic Shot and can escape the danger posed by Rend and Fate’s Call with a quick Arcane Shift.


Master Yi - the Wuju Bladesman

Highlander causes problems for Kalista since her primary escape tool applies a slow. If Kalista and her ally can’t nail Master Yi with Fate’s Call, she’s likely to be chopped up, Wuju Style.

Champion Insights

Kalista, game design by CertainlyT 

Champion diversity helps us accomplish one of our key goals, that each game of League feels different than the ones before it. Just as important as champ diversity is playerdiversity. Some opponents are risk-averse, some fight early and often. Adjusting to the unique rhythm of each game is critical to success. But League is a team game. Reading and reacting to your allies’ demeanor is equally important to victory. Kalista is for players who enjoy or want to improve at taking the pulse of teammates and working together toward a win.

As designers, we are constantly trying to help players succeed. Building scenarios that overwhelm or confuse players is simple, laying the foundations for success is the challenge. As such, Kalista highlights the cooperative end-state in which she and her ally are most likely to succeed and offers a tool kit to enable players to reach that state.

It is important to light up the right paths for players, to make the unseen momentarily visible. A champion’s focus is an opportunity to let the player grow their general skill in that area so that they can bring that strength to bear in other contexts. Consider the jungle for a new player: they’re not likely to see the value of farming it, of denying farm from the opposing jungler and of doing all this while controlling larger map objectives. Nunu’s Consume is an amazing tool for jungling that emphasizes a successful way to play. Mastering Nunu teaches the player how to jungle, enabling him to succeed on other champions in that role.
Now think of this in terms of Kalista’s focus on facilitating cooperation:

Sentinel

Passive: Soul-Marked—If Kalista and her ally attack an enemy within one second of each other, they deal bonus magic damage to their target 

Soul-Marked is designed to reveal effective duo-lane teamplay. Often in bot lane, a fight devolves into two 1v1’s happening near each other, rather than a 2v2 that’s won through cooperation between allies. Sentinel’s passive emphasizes what’s often the optimal play in these situations: focused fire.
Equally important to helping the player understand the criterion for success is giving them the tools to get there. Tools to cooperate are interesting in that they include more than just formal power. In this vein, Kalista’s kit endeavors to facilitate teamwork by resolving incentives for selfish play and visually communicating intent. 

Think of the active on Sentinel, it relieves your support (and likely Soul-Bound) of some pressure to keep up vision. That way they’ll more often be available to work together to deal bonus damage and wreak havoc with Fate’s Call. This sort of design allows us to emphasize tighter, more consistent teamwork without making Kalista so communication dependent that you practically need to play in the same room as your Soul-Bound.



We’re psyched to see what you make of Kalista. Let us know what you think below!"

Original post <- Click here to check out some videos of her skills!




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42 comments:

  1. A new marksman => ok
    High skillcap => ok
    Need cooperation with support => ok
    Can do wombo combo => OMG INSTABUY

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  2. BoltOfSpadesNovember 05, 2014

    An ultimate that can throw an ally into the enemy team without flashing? Galio's time is coming, calling it right here.

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  3. I can somehow see her with a Gnar support kinda working...
    Gnar's range AA can be easily used with Kalista's W passive, unlike melee tank support who would not be able to proc the W as often.
    And also, Kalista's ult can synergize pretty well with Gnar's mega form.
    Just a random idea, since this ult can arise some "very unorthodox supports..."

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  4. New galio kalista Op support combo! Throwing the surprise Idol!

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  5. Probably not. They will suck without both ultimates and Kalista's passive will be pointless. Tiger is more on point but, someone like Morgana or Annie who can already function well as a support with the advantage of being thrown into the middle of a 2v2 and ranged aa's for Kalista's passive.

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  6. SquirrelNutkinsNovember 05, 2014

    Azir mid, Kalista adc, xin zhao jungle. #spearsquadnoobs

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  7. >high skill cap champion
    >darius
    choose one :^)

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  8. Early game, I see what you mean. It would be an excellent tool for ranged harass, but late game I believe it would be negligible. You have a flying Gargoyle in your face, that has a slow of his own, plus the slow from Kalista. The passive will be procced, then the question would be is a Galio ult greater than whoever else's ult you are discussing, which I think it is. If the early game advantage of having that ranged harass is too good to pass up however, by all means use it.

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  9. Sarcasm honey, but I think it'll be sona or braum that's good.

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  10. OR even worse, alistar.

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  11. Someone is upset.

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  12. pantheon top

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  13. Matias Ignacio Araneda ArayaNovember 05, 2014

    nidalee top with more utility... really gonna love this champ :3

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  14. Josh ThurlowNovember 05, 2014

    I think you could also use your item on the jungler, that'd work with counter ganks and ganking in general

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  15. steeeeeeeeeeeveNovember 05, 2014

    Yeah, because yasuo takes skill.

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  16. KingoftheSocksNovember 05, 2014

    As a player of Gnar support I am now very excited for kalista now. They will fear Gnarra Support

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  17. SquirrelNutkinsNovember 05, 2014

    Dang forgot about him! and finally, Nidalee support!

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  18. SquirrelNutkinsNovember 05, 2014

    lol i agree, but same goes with Yasuo.

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  19. nono, i actually love darius, he's my fave top. But let's be honest, he's not that hard

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  20. huh? Yasuo does take skill, at least early game. A high skilled player will know when he needs to dash/wind wall/ult and a low skilled player won't.

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  21. 42% win rate means something :^)

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  22. SquirrelNutkinsNovember 05, 2014

    42% winrate doesn't mean the champion is necessarily high or even medium skill-cap. It just means the champion's weak now given the solo queue meta that we play in, or possibly that it's potential was absolutely nerfed into the dirt. With Yasuo, I believe it is both.

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  23. SquirrelNutkinsNovember 05, 2014

    You could say the same for every champion. Every champion has intricacies regarding their playstyle, but take more experience to master. However given that, champions like Yasuo and Darius are easier relative to some other champions we could think of. Some have steeper learning curves than others on the way to mastery.

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  24. Carlos Martinez GonzalezNovember 06, 2014

    duuuuude the galio support is back!

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  25. F*ck RIOT We want new jungle champ

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  26. Played her a bit on PBE. being unable to auto attack cancel is really difficult. one wrong jump can mean getting instagibbed since she doesn't have an escape other than kiting with Q, which is also your main poke damage. But, that having been said, she's very fun. I'm not sure if anyone could possibly make use of every hop with an attack speed of 1.5 or higher without korean hands, but its a nice mechanic. My favorite thing about the q-e mechanic though is being able to set up q-e combos by piercing through minions and passing stacks of rend to the enemy champion. Unfortunately her W and R kind of lock her into bot lane playing with a support, but it can also potentially be useful to play her mid and soulbind with a stealth jungler, though i doubt that'll be common.

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  27. Well, huh, it's true, Yasuo is a pretty much braindead champion late game. But he's early sucks and he has become so predictable, poor Yasuo.
    I think he might need a buff early game and nerf late game

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  28. I think in Riot they ran out of ideas, can be fun but not solid for SoloQ

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  29. SPEAR TEAM OP

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  30. kalista's rateos are really high,Q has got 250 base+100%total ad and E with some stacks hurts more than twitch's E(while obviusly is harder to stack spear as twitch's venom),also her w is the ultimate utility for an ad carry,free reliable vision
    her ulti is good on paper but takes in mind she will force you do not aa for like 1 secs(unless enemies are point blank and you don't need more range) and it doesn't deal any damage(unless you got fed yasuo in your team:D)
    i would say that her late game doesn't look so strong with no steroids and a medium range but early her poke combined with W and E procs will hurt

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  31. riot should make fun champions,not op champion for easy win (like yasuo and braym pre-nerf)

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  32. *Binds with support* *Throws them into 5 and runs*

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  33. Yasuo and Braum are fun champs though, even if they were OP, just look at the top win rates for the real op boring champs (WW, Rammus, Amumu...)

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  34. The support chooses when or not to get thrown out. The more you know~

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  35. I said solid not OP champ.
    Fun is ok but on Solo Q you need to win not have fun :)

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  36. in kalista case she looks pretty solid,her Q is high damaging and her E has the potential to instakill people(and it has got a reset)
    maybe her concept is a bit astract and strange but she doesn't seems underpowered(at least she didn't have to go melee for kill people)

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  37. No sterioid plus really weird mobility (it's about has long as rivens jump I think but going through walls with that + q will be really weird. I'm thinking as it stands she's tier-2/3

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  38. already tried ezreal and i found a pain in the a*s not having a poke that doesn't go through minions,i don't know,we will see in win rates

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  39. I wonder if combining with a jungler like amumu would be good so you can throw him in the middle of the team.

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  40. I will play kalista more and undestand if is ok for Solo Q

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  41. Yah, I can see her being pretty good with several champs. The ranged synergy vs the desire to toss your soulbound into the enemy team will make for some interesting choices on support. Gnar and Velkoz would both work well on her passive, but I think I don't really want to toss Vel into the enemy team with my ult.


    I'll say that she's going to be tier 3 for soloQ, but she's probably much better for duo or coordinated teams do to the synergy with well communicated plays. If your SoloQ support DC's for instance, your ult is now gone. Sad panda.

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  42. I think that a morgana + kalista combo will be wombo
    The aoe stun plus an easy setup + cc to hold them in place for it
    plus ranged aa
    gg ez

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