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Strategy is highly subjective and may become outdated without any notice. Because of this, the League of Legends Wiki has decided to retire strategy pages and would recommend using other platforms (such as YouTube) to find guides. For more information visit this thread.
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Champion Spotlight[]
Recommended Items[]
Tips[]
- Playing As
Kalista
- Rend is a valuable last hitting aid, since its cooldown resets if it kills a target.
- Entering a move order once to trigger Martial Poise will not clear Kalista's basic attack target.
- Due to her passive, Kalista's Movement Speed is effectively increased by Attack Speed.
- Playing Against Kalista
- Kalista's mobility is dependent upon attacking. This means it is low when she is outside of her attack range and that Attack Speed slows reduce the amount of distance she can cover in an engagement.
- Kalista cannot cancel her basic attack wind up. While she is very mobile, this offers a window to land spells on her if you anticipate when she will begin attacking.
- If you can break line of sight from Kalista, including through brush, her basic attacks will miss you, falling harmlessly to the ground.
Tricks[]
- Ability Usage
- Kalista's a highly-mobile marksman who excels at poking, kiting and dodging almost every skillshot.
- As Rend's cooldown is refreshed if she kills at least one target, try to stack spears on minions as well as champions and then use the ability as the minions are about to die. This way you get the reset to both farm effectively and harass your enemies.
- Use Martial Poise to your advantage. While running from enemies try to always kite them with autoattacks and Pierce, as it enhances Kalista's mobility. This way you can deal damage, run from enemies and slow them with Rend, making it an excellent escape tool. While chasing enemies, save your Rend as an execute instead.
- Be very careful not to go in first during large teamfights, especially if enemy team has champions with hard CC like Nautilus, Leona, Thresh, and others. Kalista's pretty squishy compared to other champions and can be killed instantly. Even if she manages to use Martial Poise correctly, any kind of CC can be fatal if she overextends.
- Kalista is odd in that she's a marksman who can dictate fights with Fate's Call, but be careful not to use it only on a single target, especially in mid game, as it has pretty long cooldown.
- Kalista's mobility outside of combat is limited, but Martial Poise and Pierce can be used in the jungle, allowing her to leap small walls. This can be a lifesaver if she's caught alone and has no way to get out of the fight, especially if she's without her Soul-Bound. Using only Pierce to hop over walls isn't very hard, but using only Martial Poise to do the same can be very difficult to pull off, especially if you're out of mana and escaping an enemy in jungle. You'll have one or two chances to time your autoattacks perfectly so you can proc Martial Poise and hop over a wall during it.
- The same strategy can be used to catch up to fleeing enemies instead. For instance, high mobility champions like Lee Sin are almost uncatchable for Kalista, as he can simply use Sonic Wave or ward-hop over a wall with Safeguard. However, if he's low on energy and has no more escapes left, in a short period of time Kalista can use Pierce to leap over jungle walls and catch up to him, securing her kill safely.
- The same strategy can be used to catch up to fleeing enemies instead. For instance, high mobility champions like
- Don't forget to use her Sentinel to patrol certain areas effectively. Try to send it to the jungle so as to scout through both bushes and river, thus warning for an incoming enemy jungler or other threats.
- When caught alone with your Soul-Bound and against the whole enemy team, usually if you manage to use Martial Poise correctly, you'll most likely stay out of harm's way while forcing the enemy team to use all their crowd control on your support. However, you can waste their ultimates or other valuable abilities by waiting for them to aim at your support and, when they're about to die, use Fate's Call to pull them towards you and back to safety. This way you'll both save your ally and waste valuable enemy abilities, as well as giving your team precious time to engage on them safely.
- Try not to always use Rend as a farming tool. Instead, ask your Soul-Bound to autoattack minions when they're low on health. This way you will farm more effectively with Soul-Marked and save your mana for opportunities and/or emergencies.
- Rend can stack lots of spears on monsters like Dragon or Baron Nashor, making it an excellent ability to use against them.
- During laning phase, Martial Poise allows going through minions while other champions have a harder time doing the same thing, especially at early levels. Use this as an advantage when you're facing skillshot reliant champions like Ezreal or Jinx. Time your autoattacks, go through the minion wave, harass them and then hop beside your minion wave shortly after (which also allows you to waste enemy abilities like Mystic Shot or Zap!) This is a very effective way to harass your enemy in lane, but beware: players with higher reflexes can sometimes predict when you're about to jump in front of your minions, saving their abilities for when you go in.
- Mastery Usage
- Item Usage
- Kalista can start the game with either Doran's Blade for a little more damage and sustain or, alternatively, if you're confident in yourself, a Long Sword for more early burst damage.
- In most cases it's best to rush Blade of the Ruined King first and foremost, as it's one of the best core items for Kalista.
- Runaan's Hurricane is another great buy, allowing to use Martial Poise and Rend more effectively.
- Berserker's Greaves are the recommended boots for Kalista, as the extra attack speed synergizes well with Martial Poise.
- The Bloodthirster is a brilliant item for Kalista, granting her life steal, more attack damage, and a shield which makes up for her squishiness.
- Quicksilver Sash is a must if the enemy team has hard CC champions like Thresh, Nautilus, Leona, or others. Furthermore, it can be upgraded to Mercurial Scimitar for higher magic resistance, more attack damage, and life steal, all of which Kalista really needs to survive major teamfights.
- While it may not seem a good choice, when she's built her core items Kalista can buy Frozen Mallet, whose Icy allows her to slow enemies more effectively while giving her a lot of health and a little more damage. This is a very effective item if the enemy team has many tanks who have to get near your team to be effective.
- Last Whisper's upgrades are excellent items for Kalista if the enemy team has lots of durable tanks with lots of armor, health ( Lord Dominik's Regards) and/or sustain ( Mortal Reminder)
- Countering
- Be careful not to pick ranged champions like Ezreal or Jinx against Kalista, as her Martial Poise will make her very difficult to deal with, especially once she starts building attack speed. Picking champions like Leona/ Blitzcrank/ Thresh (if you're playing support) or Draven/ Graves/ Ashe (if you're playing ADC) will make her weaker, since combined CC and damage will almost always overwhelm her.
- Ashe is considered as one of the best counters against Kalista, as Frost Shot's permaslow and Enchanted Crystal Arrow's stun are very difficult for Kalista to deal with. And finally, a stacked Ranger's Focus can turn the tables in Ashe's favor.
- Smart Kalista players will usually stay in the backline and wait for their team to initiate first. Still, champions like Zed or Talon can approach her team from behind, kill Kalista instantly, and then easily escape thanks to their high mobility.
- Kalista needs to get some items to use Martial Poise effectively, but until then she's fairly easy to kill if you're able to quickly gapclose, harass her, and get away. Take advantage of her early game squishiness and burst her down before she's able to turn confrontations around.
- In most cases, Kalista has pretty good mobility after Level 6, allowing her to kite the enemy junglers when they comes to gank. But you can punish her by focusing her, because if you focus her support she can eventually use Fate's Call and save them, thus wasting both your abilities and initiation.
- If you're a skillshot champion don't waste them against her. Good Kalista players will always almost dodge any kind of skillshots with ease or simply stay behind minions. Instead, save your abilities for when your team initiates on Kalista, as one simple stun on her can give you an easy kill.
- If you're the jungler, be careful when ganking Kalista and her Soul-Bound, for she can have unlimited vision in the jungle thanks to Sentinel. However, you can easily avoid detection by avoiding the Sentinel's vision cone and destroying them from behind.
- Lane bullies work very well against Kalista. The best one is Caitlyn, as she outrange and outpoke her early on and throughout the game. However, smart Kalista players can dodge Piltover Peacemaker quite easily, not to mention that spamming this ability will drain Caitlyn's mana pool very quickly and shoves her lane to allow the enemy jungler to come knocking, while Kalista has less mana issues early on.
- Know your strengths! Kalista is one of the most mobile champions, allowing her to become super hard to catch (excluding using hard CC on her) Don't overextend chasing her if you can't catch her.
