With over a 70% win rate in his professional career on Kalista, Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen sat down with us to share some insights on how to hop, skip, and jump ahead of your competition with one of the League of Legends’ hardest Champions to play!
Struggling with playing on-hit or lethality in solo queue, or just wondering how to transfer a winning lane to a winning game? Zven’s tips will help you spear enemies and find vengeance on the Rift!
Kalista, a name that echoes through the haunted corridors of the Shadow Isles, stands as a chilling testament to betrayal and vengeance in the world of League of Legends. Once a noble general and the niece of Viego, the King of a forgotten empire, Kalista's tale is woven with loyalty, tragedy, and spectral retribution.
Her story is a somber reminder of the thin line between loyalty and obsession, and how the pursuit of retribution can sometimes lead to one's own undoing. Kalista now serves as a grim guardian of the Isles, a spectral warrior who exacts vengeance for those who dare call upon her with offerings of their own souls. Her lore not only enriches the tapestry of League of Legends but also offers players a glimpse into the vengeful playstyle the Champion requires!
Martial Poise
Kalista is known for her unique and dynamic passive ability, Martial Poise. This ability is what sets Kalista apart on the battlefield, granting her an unparalleled level of mobility that's high risk/reward.
Martial Poise allows Kalista to execute a short lunge in the direction of her choice whenever she winds up a basic attack or uses her Q ability, Pierce. This lunge distance is influenced by the tier of boots she wears.
A standout feature of Martial Poise is that once Kalista initiates an auto-attack, it cannot be canceled. This commits Kalista to her chosen direction and action, which embodies that high risk/reward double-edged sword! It guarantees that her attacks will hit if the target remains in range, but also means she can't easily retreat from a misplay. Additionally, her attacks deal only 90% of her total attack damage, a trade-off for the ability to reposition rapidly on the fly.
The tactical applications of Martial Poise are vast. In lane, it allows Kalista to weave in and out of enemy range, dodging skill shots and managing wave control with finesse. In teamfights, her mobility shines even brighter, letting her skirt the edges of the fray or dive deep to finish off fleeing enemies. However, the skill cap is high—effective use of Martial Poise demands precise timing and spatial awareness, making Kalista a challenging champion to master but incredibly rewarding for those who do.
Zven: It is hard to explain, generally. You kind of just have to play the Champion. Start to learn the flow and how to click and jump in a direction. Sometimes you click and jump in a direction and end up on top of the enemy. It’s definitely a hard champion to play, but it’s very rewarding to master.
Optimizing Kalista’s Arsenal: Build & Items
Kalista, a high-skill cap marksman that thrives with the right mix of items to enhance her unique playstyle. Here's a breakdown of the optimal build to maximize her gameplay potential:
Core Items:
- Blade of the Ruined King: This item is crucial for Kalista, offering attack damage, attack speed, and life steal. Its passive deals damage based on the target's current health, which is perfect for shredding tanky opponents.
- Berserker's Greaves: For boots, Kalista benefits greatly from the enhanced attack speed provided by Berserker's Greaves, helping her to rapidly stack spears on her targets.
- Guinsoo's Rageblade: This item synergizes well with Kalista's need to stack hits quickly, enhancing both her attack speed and on-hit damage effects.
- Terminus: This item is excellent for Kalista’s on-hit style while granting additional damage, attack speed, and on-hit magic damage. This item’s passive grants a good mix of tank shredding, and bulk when in combat.
Situational Items
- Jak'Sho, The Protean: Offers both defensive and offensive stats, adapting to how the fight progresses.
- Bloodthirster: For additional life steal and a shield, bolstering her survivability in prolonged fights.
Starting and Early Game Items:
- Start with Doran's Blade for early damage and health, paired with a Health Potion for sustain in lane.
- As soon as possible, buy Berserker’s Greaves to upgrade Kalista’s passive hopping distance!
By strategically building these items, Kalista can significantly enhance her mobility, survivability, and damage output, making her a formidable foe in the right hands. These builds are backed by data from numerous games and are tailored to leverage Kalista's strengths in various game phases.
Zven: If you’re playing more of an on-hit style against tanks or bruisers, you go Press the Attack, Triumph, Alacrity, Coup de Grace or Cut Down, doesn’t really matter. You can pretty much go whatever you want for Secondary it doesn’t really matter. Then you go for something like Blade of the Ruined King into Guinsoo’s Rageblade, but always get your Berserker’s Greaves as soon as you can. If your first buy is enough to buy the attack speed boots, you buy them. It’s the best item in the game on Kalista, if you’re playing on-hit. After that, build Terminus, and then tank. Something like Jak’Sho (The Protean), or Maw of Malmortius, or even Randuin’s Omen. If you want more damage you can go Bloodthirster against like a poke comp!
Alternative Build Paths
Kalista is one of the many Champions in League of Legends that add diversity and complexity with variable build paths. This makes for an adaptable Champion that can fit broader team styles and play around certain enemy teams. The alternative build path that is currently meta is Lethality.
Zven: In a double ranged matchup you can go Hail of Blades and buy Lethality. First item Opportunity, second item Edge of Night usually (for the stats it gives and the spell shield is really good). For your third item, you usually want Serelyda’s Grudge, and from there you usually want Serpent’s Fang against shields like Seraphine or Hubris in a solo queue game when you get a bunch of kills, or even Youmuu’s Ghostblade or something like that.
Rune Setups
For Kalista, selecting the right runes is crucial to maximizing her potential in battle. Her unique playstyle benefits greatly from the Precision and Domination rune paths.
Primary Rune Path: Precision
- Press the Attack: This keystone is essential for Kalista, enhancing her damage after consecutive attacks, which synergizes perfectly with her ability to rapidly stack spears on her targets.
- Triumph: Offers crucial in-fight healing and additional gold on takedowns, which helps sustain and snowball her lead in skirmishes.
- Legend: Alacrity: This rune boosts her attack speed, further enhancing her spear-stacking capability and overall DPS.
- Coup de Grace or Cut Down: Both runes are viable; choose Coup de Grace for finishing off weaker opponents or Cut Down to help shred those pesky tanks!
Zven: Take Hail of Blades or Press the Attack and use them in lane a lot! They are just too strong in lane with Kalista so you have to play aggressive and use those strengths.
As Zven has already mentioned, the Secondary tree is more customizable to your liking, and dependent on your matchups, but here’s an example of what most pros chose to combo with the Press the Attack Primary setup.
Secondary Rune Path: Domination
- Sudden Impact: Of course, this just works so seamlessly with Kalista’s passive to squeak out more damage.
- Treasure Hunter: More gold is more damage! More damage is a more vengeful Kalista - not much else to it!
Rune Shards:
- Attack Speed: Vital for increasing her spear application rate.
- Adaptive Force: Boosts her overall damage output.
- Tenacity and Slow Resist: Slows really hurt Kalista - this reduces them significantly!
These rune choices are tailored to enhance Kalista's strengths, focusing on her agility, sustain, and ability to execute swift, decisive attacks. With this setup, she can effectively navigate team fights, secure objectives, and dominate lane engagements.
Positioning Throughout the Game
Early Game
Kalista's early game is crucial for setting the pace. Her ability to secure an early advantage can significantly influence her mid and late-game effectiveness. Early on, focus on farming and utilize your support to make aggressive plays if opportunities arise. The combination of Kalista's high mobility from her passive, Martial Poise, and her Rend ability allows for effective trading and skirmishing. Be careful of ganks, as Kalista can be easy to gank due to her pushing power. Something as simple as a point-and-click slow can really diminish Kalista’s ability to escape a gank as well!
Zven: “Kalista has a very strong laning phase. Very reliable, and you can win lane in almost every single game you play. It’s a champion that empowers your support a lot, so I really recommend playing it with a duo queue. This is both a strength and a weakness because it empowers your Support player. It enables them, but it also relies on them. So I always recommend a duo queue for Kalista.”
Mid Game
As you transition to mid-game, Kalista's role shifts towards objective control and skirmishing. Her Rend is exceptionally effective at securing objectives like Dragons and Rift Herald, making her a valuable asset during these contests. Stick close to your team, especially your support, to maximize your effectiveness in skirmishes and small team fights. Utilize your mobility to dodge skill shots and reposition, keeping an eye on squishy targets that you can burst down with accumulated Rend stacks. Remember, that if you’re playing lethality Kalista, this is your time to shine and burst out targets to snowball your early lead!
Late Game
In the late game, positioning becomes paramount. Kalista needs to stay on the fringes of teamfights, utilizing her passive to maintain distance while still contributing with auto-attacks and Rend. Keep your support or a tanky teammate nearby to use your ultimate, Fate's Call, effectively either for engaging by throwing your ally into the fray or for disengaging to peel for yourself or a teammate. Focus on kiting enemies and look for opportunities to secure kills with well-timed Rend activations.
Zven: It is important to get an idea of predicting where skillshots might go more than other Champions, because other Champions you just try to keep moving randomly in some ways. With Kalista, you momentarily pause, and it’s a window where people know you will move a fixed distance, it’s just a matter of what direction. So, you have to be aware of that.
Throughout all phases, maintaining good vision and awareness of enemy positions is crucial for Kalista to navigate fights and avoid getting caught out. Her high mobility and objective control can be game-changing if played correctly.
Key Matchups
Understanding how to counter your matchups is crucial, especially for a champion like Kalista. Her high mobility and Rend ability make her a formidable foe, but certain champions can effectively neutralize her strengths.
Key Counters
Draven and Ashe are known to be strong against Kalista. Draven's aggressive early game and high damage output can overwhelm Kalista before she gains momentum. Ashe's ability to control the pace with her slows and long-range engage with her ultimate makes it difficult for Kalista to utilize her mobility effectively.
Zven: I think Champions that are good in lane like Ashe, Varus, or Draven can be hard, but there are certain times where you win, and certain times where they win. Every lane is different and you need to have an understanding of matchups.
Against Draven, you want to avoid trading straight up. But, if you combo with Kalista-Renata and both auto at the same time, you proc your W, you get a spear, you back out and slow him and can Q him to kite him and space him a bit.
Against Ashe, you have to be careful you don’t get slowed because you’ll attack slower. For every Champion, you kind of have a different way you want to approach the trading. Against Champions like these, you often will need to wait for your Support to engage on them, or just try to poke with your Q. You just need to make good use of your E and reset it by killing a minion with it if you are going to use it on your matchup. It’s just some nuance.
In League, you can’t play every game the same way. You need to get used to some patterns of trades and support matchups. It’s important to watch your games over and see what you could do differently.
Easy Matchups
Ezreal and Zeri are typically easy lane matchups for Kalista. Both of these Champions rely on skillshots to deal comparable damage to their opposition, but Kalista’s passive makes it painful for these Champions to play against her. Not to mention how squishy they are that Kalista only takes a few seconds to tear through their health bar even early in the game!
Key Synergies
Because Kalista’s strength is her early game, anything that can empower her early on is a great choice. Since that’s the primary goal of all Supports, hence the name… it’s not tricky to pick a Support that will work with Kalista. Of course, some are better than others!
Generally, Kalista is looking for a Support that is either great at engaging, or another ranged Champion that can poke down enemies in lane and play aggressively to start the snowball as early as level 1.
Zven: Always play strong laners or engage Champions with Kalista. For ranged Champions, stuff like Ashe, Neeko, Rumble. For melee Champions, stuff like Alistar, Nautilus, Blitzcrank are really good options. Even Rell or Leona are fine too. Besides that, play aggressive! You’re really strong in 2v2s, 3v3s, dives, and use the strengths from the level 3 and 6 power spikes.
Advanced Tactics: Mastering Kalista's Combos and Engagements
Kalista, with her unique kit, offers a dynamic gameplay style that, when mastered, can lead to spectacular outplays and teamfight dominance. Key to her mastery are her ability combos, which enable her to maximize damage output and control in skirmishes and team fights.
1. Basic Harass Combo: A fundamental combo for Kalista involves auto-attacking to stack spears with her Rend ability, then using Pierce to transfer those spears to another target. This is great for poking and maintaining pressure in the laning phase!
2. All-in Engagement: For a more aggressive play, after stacking several spears into an enemy with AAs, utilize Pierce for additional damage and immediately follow with Rend to pull the spears out for massive burst damage. This combo is particularly effective when you've whittled down your opponent's health and are ready to secure a kill. Even in the laning phase, when building lethality with the Hail of Blades setup, you can easily secure first blood if you and your Support are on the same page and fully commit!
3. Chase Down Technique: Kalista’s passive, Martial Poise, allows her to reposition with each auto-attack, making her exceptional at chasing down fleeing enemies. Combine this with her Q and E for a relentless pursuit of vengeance!
4. Ultimate Disengage/Engage: Kalista’s ultimate, Fate’s Call, offers dual utility. Use it defensively to reposition your bound ally out of harm's way or offensively to throw them into the fray, ideally followed by your ally’s crowd control abilities to lock down targets for a follow-up assault.
5. Martial Poise With Terrain: Remember, Kalista’s passive makes her move a fixed distance that’s pre-determined based on your boot upgrade. Experiment around various terrain on the Rift to maneuver over/through terrain to easily dance on the fine line of danger! This is an exceptional tool to master in various places on the Rift where you might feel you’re stuck in a choke hold as you can easily auto-jump over the wall, or can even Q to move if there’s nothing in range to attack!
These tactics, when used effectively, require not just mechanical prowess but also good judgment and timing. Practicing these combos in various game scenarios will enhance your ability to make split-second decisions that could turn the tide of battle. Each engagement with Kalista is about rhythm and flow, finding the right moment to strike and kite, leveraging her mobility and stacking mechanics to outmaneuver and outlast her opponents.
Wrapping Up: Mastering Kalista in League of Legends
Kalista, the Spear of Vengeance, stands out in League of Legends for her unique mechanics and strategic depth. This guide has explored various facets of mastering Kalista, from understanding her lore as a betrayed spirit seeking retribution to harnessing her complex abilities in-game. By mastering her passive, Martial Poise, players can optimize her mobility to dodge attacks and position effectively. Her ability set allows for versatile strategies whether poking from a distance or executing burst damage in close range.
Effective itemization is crucial and complementing them with situational picks enhances her gameplay significantly. Choosing the optimal runes, such as Press the Attack or Hail of Blades, can fine-tune her combat efficiency based on your playstyle and the game’s demands.
Kalista's synergy with certain support champions can't be overstated. Pairing her with supports like Nautilus or Braum can amplify her strengths and mitigate weaknesses, particularly in competitive play where coordination shines - like Zven said… always duo with Kalista!
In conclusion, Kalista offers a high skill ceiling and rich tactical gameplay that can be extremely rewarding for those willing to invest time in mastering her kit. Whether you're maneuvering through solo queue, duo queue, or team setups, Kalista can be a formidable champion in the right hands, capable of turning the tide of battle with her swift strikes and clutch ultimates.
We’d like to thank Zven for taking the time to sit down with us right before the start of the LCS Summer Split to share his insights on Kalista, the Spear of Vengeance!
If you’d like to hear and see more of Zven, check out his socials:
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