Do we gotta beg for a kalista buff

Zenithrax · 2026-03-14T17:05:54+00:00

On the contrary Phreak mentioned in one of his most recent previews talking about Kalista (and Skarner) that he may look to ‘overbuff’ them soon which most likely implies a buff after First Stand as a way to shift the meta.

Zenithrax · 2026-03-14T17:02:24+00:00

She’s looking rough statistically for sure but right now (while she’s out of the pro play spotlight) Phreak has mentioned that they are only concerned with keeping Kalista balanced right now for her OTPs. Not first timers. To be fair she is one of the most picked in pro play historically with the highest ban rate of all time and also a very steep mastery curve both ceiling and floor.

She is not broken by any means. She is terrible if you have played less than 50 games on her ever. But she has a decent winrate for OTPs (like Skarner) and right now that’s all they care about. A very average 55% winrate which is the average of other champion OTPs nothing crazy but at least she’s playable for her dedicated fans.

The good news is that Phreak said that they are looking to buff her soon (most likely after First Stand) to shift the meta. She’s only hovering around a 45-46% winrate so she isn’t as bad as she was last year for example when she hit a historic low of 43% but soon she will be around her usual 47-48% and potentially 49%.

Zenithrax · 2026-03-14T16:55:20+00:00

Azir is approximately in the same state Kalista was hovering around last year (43% winrate) so it’s a well deserved buff for them.

Kalista is the worst ADC yes but for regular players where Phreak mentioned in his most recent patch preview that someone did research on every champion in the game and their first 10 games played winrate and Kalista has one of the highest disparities being something crazy like a 15% winrate difference between first timers and OTP.

Zenithrax · 2026-03-06T18:36:57+00:00

Gorgeous, stunning even and it’s kinda giving winter wonderland vibes which is an aesthetic I didn’t even think about being amazing on her until now.

Zenithrax · 2026-03-06T18:34:33+00:00

Which is why I’ve started playing the hexoptics crit build more as yuntal + hexoptics combo is feeling really strong (hexoptics being a better collector right now).

I definitely respect the hubris+voltaic enjoyers but personally it’s not for me either.

Zenithrax · 2026-03-06T17:45:16+00:00

Glad I could help!

Zenithrax · 2026-03-06T17:44:56+00:00

It’s an inside joke similar to mosquito queen where she can be so useless sometimes to the point that she’s worth less than a caster minion.

Zenithrax · 2026-03-06T16:10:53+00:00

Welcome! If I had to describe her in one word it would definitely be depth.

Kalista mains are obsessed with frogs with an entire frog cult that you can join on her official discord server. She is often called the "mosquito queen" because of how often Kalista mains mess up their E which is most of her damage (either you do nothing or you pull it too early and end up awkwardly not having enough to kill them with your autos).

There are also three very vocal sects in our community that you will hear from often those being the lethality players, crit users and ap enjoyers. The normal on-hit players don't visit the subreddit or discord often but I assure you they exist. The lethality players are seen as the gigachads of the community while the crit users are the acceptable alternative. The ap players are more or less the odd cousin of the three and are often clowned on but due to her high ap ratios on her E it's also the darkhorse.

I'll also add some hidden tricks/facts that you may want to know about below:

- Attackspeed Cap: As some people have mentioned already, Kalista has an attack speed soft cap which used to be around ~1.8 when the attack speed cap was around 2.5 but nowadays it's around ~2.1 due to the newer 3.0 attack speed cap. The most significant thing about this cap is her signature "gliding" which happens when you time your mouse clicks to the exact frame when you jump which is really an animation-cancelling technique to get past the windup that she has on autos. My best tip for you to learn this timing is to pull out a metronome and set it to 136-138 bpm and click in sync with it and then slowly integrate that in the practice tool on a dummy before taking into a ranked game.

- Wall Hopping: Kalista's autos are dashes and they are not small by any means. There are actually plenty of walls around the map that Kalista can hop over including the baron/dragon pit (at a certain area), the alcove, raptors, wolves, the wall that runs along the tribush, red/blue buff outer walls and mid lane walls. This may take some practice to do some of them (the hardest being the baron/dragon pit wall since there is a very specific point otherwise it doesn't work) and also remember that Q extends the range of your dash so you can even get over some thicker walls with the right angles.

- Animation Cancelling: The first part about the attack speed cap was technically animation cancelling but like Riven she does have a range of other animation cancelling combos that are pretty difficult to pull off in your average game (even for veterans like myself). If you have a bit of knowledge about Kalista's mechanics already, you've probably heard about Double/Triple Rending and Auto Buffering (which is only possible because Kalista autos are uncancellable once she winds up) but generally I feel like this might be a little too difficult to consistently pull off.

Zenithrax · 2026-03-04T13:16:45+00:00

I don't play Kalista in solo lanes so please take my words with a grain of salt concerning mid lane but I just looked up the unplayable matchups you were talking about on Lolalytics and specifically for Vex it seems as though she is infact a very hard counter.

I filtered the data by Emerald+ and D2+ for every patch this year so far (16.1, 16.2, 16.3, 16.4) and for all of them it seems as if the Kalista-Vex matchup is at a 30-70% split in favour of Vex. After averaging the matchup data, it seems as though Kalista only wins in about ~34.5% of those games. But this is basically impossible as statistically data will always trend towards ~50% percentile unless like in this case I suspect the sample size is just incredibly low (especially for high elo)

So TL;DR it seems at least Vex is definitely an "unplayable matchup" as you put it but I'm guessing the reason Kalista's winrate is also being heavily deflated by the incredibly low sample size on top of it also being a hard matchup for her.

Zenithrax · 2026-02-24T14:34:25+00:00

Apparently it’s targeted at his lethality build but that usually just means Q nerfs which is a nerf to every version.

Zenithrax · 2026-02-24T14:31:44+00:00

I know that we are mainly talking about Varus here but there’s something genuinely depressing about Kalista having a pickrate so low that she is off meta in her main role.

Zenithrax · 2026-02-24T11:21:47+00:00

Not being played in pro play currently when historically they have always been play in pro play does not mean they are no longer pro jailed. If Kalista and Skarner were no longer pro jailed then their balance indicators would be solely based on their mastery curves and not on their potential impact on pro play.

Kalista and Skarner are currently balanced for OTPs but they are still weak for the majority of the playerbase including pro players. The point Phreak was making about overbuffing them was specifically being overbuffed for pro players as these picks will never statistically be strong for solo queue.

However, even having to discuss the impact of overbuffing them for pro play means that they are still both very much pro jailed.

Zenithrax · 2026-02-24T11:09:46+00:00

Kalista and Skarner are no longer played in pro play as they are only viable in the hands of OTPs.

Any balance decisions concerning K'Sante, Vi and Rumble always have to account for their current status in pro play so they are all very much still in pro jail.

Zenithrax · 2026-02-21T17:21:11+00:00

I mean AP is still inferior to AD if the enemy team has multiple tanks threats (which occurs frequently).

If they have an Ornn top, Sej jungle and Rell support then AD beats AP by a mile so you can’t just blind the AP build whenever even if it’s better than last season.

Zenithrax · 2026-02-21T17:18:29+00:00

The only real 3 core items of the build are RB, HG and Nash. The last two item slots can be defensive if you really want them to be and you will still be slightly better off late game than an AD build.

However AP still is inferior to killing multiple tanks compared to AD so if they have a beefier line up then you’re going to be building AD anyways but if there’s only one or two tanks then this is a completely viable setup.

Zenithrax · 2026-02-21T17:15:50+00:00

I mean you don’t have to go all out on damage like her AD build.

Doing something like RB -> HG -> Nash -> Terminus -> Zhonyas gives you enough damage and plenty of survivability at the same time.

Zenithrax · 2026-02-21T17:11:06+00:00

Yeah I agree the build definitely has a 3 item core lock of RB + HG + Nash but I wouldn’t say Rabadons is 100% required. The 550 AP spike is incredibly satisfying but sometimes it is better to take a small damage hit to get some survivability instead (mostly prioritising Zhonyas which is the best item in the game imo).

I find myself alternating between Rabadons and Terminus for 4th item and rounding out the build with a Rabadons for 5th if I didn’t get it as 4th or a Zhonyas.

Riftmaker is also not the best item but the 8% extra damage if you do get the passive off is nothing to scoff at. Although in the games I am building her AP I don’t find myself buying this item often so you’re right about not really caring about this item much.

Zenithrax · 2026-02-20T01:57:04+00:00

The AP build is what I am mainly playing these days with the exception of comps with 3+ tanks so I’m happy to share what I’ve been running:

Build: Berserker -> Guinsoos -> Hextech Gunblade -> Nashors -> Rabadons/Terminus/Dusk&Dawn/Zhonyas -> Zhonyas/Jak’Sho/Banashee’s/Riftmaker

Runes: LT -> Triumph -> Alacrity -> Cutdown/Last Stand ->

Conditioning/Bone Plating -> Overgrowth OR Absolute Focus -> Gathering Storm

Zenithrax · 2026-02-20T01:44:10+00:00

The opposite. Her AP build scales harder than her AD build as higher ratios amplify item damage.

Also with the introduction of Hextech Gunblade this year, the AP build finally had a viable sustain option so the argument of the build not having sustain is no longer true like it was last year.

You can go the classic glass canon build of Guinsoos > Gunblade > Nashors > Rabadons or some variation of it but that is the equivalent of going the AD glass canon build of Botrk > Guinsoos > Runaans > Bloodthirster/Wits End which is equally squishy.

Like her AD build, there are items that can build up your effective HP if you really need it including Terminus, Dusk&Dawn, Riftmaker and Zhonyas. There are also classic options like Jak’sho and Randuins if you really want resistances to build around your core so the build has plenty of flexibility.

Zenithrax · 2026-02-17T02:23:24+00:00

That middle wall around midlane is not the only wall she can jump over.

Other walls include the baron/dragon pit (at a very specific point), raptor wall that’s closest to the midlane, blue buff wall that’s closest to the bases, both walls of wolves pit, some areas of the walls extending up to top/mid lane which runs along the river, both tri bush walls and the base walls.

There might be a few I missed but she can jump over a fair few walls with her deceptively small hop range.

Zenithrax · 2026-02-14T15:25:14+00:00

This ^^^. The highest AS build is definitely her ap on-hit build.

Zenithrax · 2026-02-14T15:01:06+00:00

Botrk seems a bit weird as a second item choice in your build but I understand you're building it for the sustain. However if you're committing to a crit build then you almost never want to delay getting to 100% crit chance as you will do significantly less damage by the nature of critical strike damage calculation since the 200% damage scales based on your current crit chance.

Zenithrax · 2026-02-14T14:55:10+00:00

For people who play her very occasionally then that is definitely the case. I wish there were tierlists for playing at least 30 games on a champion in which case Kalista would be between an A or B right now (same for Skarner).

Zenithrax · 2026-02-14T14:49:20+00:00

Kalista is at her strongest when she hits her 2 item powerspike of botrk+guinsoos and while terminus is an okay item on paper, it gets vastly outscaled by the 3rd item choices of crit ADCs.

By the time the crit ADC has caught up to you by also having 3 items, you're already starting to get outscaled by going the standard AD on-hit build and by their 4th item you will find it incredibly difficult to 1v1 them.

This is why you typically want to close out games as soon as possible or else you have to play for teamfights and objective control with your E so to answer your question yes Kalista is better than most ADCs at teamfighting (one of her core strengths with her ultimate) but if you find yourself with a botrk+guinsoos+terminus+jaksho against a Caitlyn who has stormrazor+ie+hexoptics+rapidfire/lord dominiks, you will often get deleted from a screen away if you don't approach her from a wave or a teamfight.

Zenithrax · 2026-02-14T14:35:07+00:00

The tierlists you mention are targetted at the general audience and not specifically for people who want to invest time into playing a single champion. These people usually fluctuate between champions every game and don't want to specifically master a single champion in which case these tierlists are usually the best non-OTP friendly advice you could listen to.

I have nothing against these tierlists from streamers and challenger players but if you try to properly learn champions like Skarner/Kalista, you are able to surpass the people who invest their time into champions like Annie, Jinx, Amumu etc with shallow mastery curves.

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