Kayle, the Righteous
Overview:
Despite receiving a (much-needed) VGU fairly recently, Kayle has been and continues to be a bit of a mess - albeit now, she is a significantly more polished mess. She's a hypercarry with support utility, a ranged fighter with a diver's ult, and despite all the shiny new changes, she's still a straightforward right-click monster whose low skill ceiling and minimal counterplay aren't great for the game.
My initial redesign's approach wasn't significantly better, unfortunately. While I reconciled the chaos within her kit by focusing her around an aggressive support role, her moment-to-moment gameplay wasn't particularly deep, and she fell into similar low-counterplay issues.
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With these changes, I wanted to combine VGU Kayle's exciting "Ascension" gameplay fantasy while providing her with more clear and dynamic play-patterns at all stages of the game.
Unlike her current iteration, Kayle is now also designed to be a compelling foil to her sister Morgana - with the two now both being divergent in playstyle and more likely to lane against than with each other, their presence within a match should bring a natural tension that matches their interactions in-universe.
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The obvious night-and-day difference between carries and supports aside, this new Kayle isn't actually much different from her current iteration. All in all, Kayle is still a zealous adjudicator who encourages allies to actively bring judgment down upon their foes while flitting around the edge of the battle.
Among the more direct hold-overs are the late-game progression of Divine Ascent, limited access to ranged attacks, a skillshot that shreds defenses, and the ability to heal and speed up teammates. With her old Ult now belonging to the more protective of the two sisters, Kayle's new Ult should still encourage bravery within her allies, or at least the comfort that whoever kills them will receive absolute retribution.
All values in blue are meant to give a general idea of the ability's properties, and are subject to change.
Class: Enchanter
Recommended Positions: Duo Sidelane (Support)
Complexity: Low
Innate: Divine Ascent
Kayle's basic attacks and damaging abilities grant her Divine Ascent. Kayle can gain Divine Ascent every 2 seconds, reduced by 0.5 seconds whenever she damages an enemy champion. Divine Ascent is triggered if Kayle hasn't attacked within 2.75 seconds, granting her 30% bonus movement speed that decays over 3 seconds.
Upgrading Divine Judgment to ranks 1 and 2 each allows Divine Ascent to stack an additional time, granting an additional 20% movement speed when triggered. Fully upgrading Divine Judgment causes Kayle to become Transcendent, fully stacking Divine Ascent whenever she would gain it.
Q: Radiant Blast
Kayle launches a celestial sword in the target direction, dealing 30/50/70/90/100 + (30% AP) magic damage to the first enemy struck and applying a stack of Searing Light for 4 seconds.
Basic attacks from Kayle and ally champions apply an additional stack, up to 4. Upon reaching 4 stacks, the target takes 45/75/105/135/150 + (45% AP) magic damage, is slowed by 35% for 2 seconds, and has their armor and magic resist reduced by 20/25/30/35/40% for 4 seconds.
Range: 900
Targeting Type: Skill Shot - Line
Cooldown: 12/11/10/9/8
Cost: 70/75/80/85/90 mana
W: Celestial Blessing
Kayle blesses an ally, healing them for 30/45/60/75/90 + (15% AP) every second for 3 seconds, and granting them 20/24/28/32/36% + (5% per 100 AP) bonus movement speed for the duration. The blessing's duration is extended by 1 second every time the target damages an enemy champion, up to 3 times.
The blessing's duration won't be extended if Kayle casts Celestial Blessing on herself.
Range: 900
Targeting Type: Targeted
Cooldown: 15
Cost: 70/80/90/100/110 mana
E: Starfire Spellblade
PASSIVE: Kayle is shielded for 80/110/140/170/200 + (50% AP) whenever Divine Ascent is triggered. This shield gradually decays when out of combat for 3 seconds.
ACTIVE: Kayle sets her sword ablaze with intense zeal, increasing her attack range by 100/200/300/400/500 for 6 seconds.
Starfire Spellblade's remaining cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds whenever Divine Ascent is triggered.
Range: Self
Targeting Type: None
Cooldown: 16
Cost: 45 mana
R: Divine Judgment
Kayle projects a radiant avatar of herself over an ally champion for 3 seconds after a 1.5 second delay. After 3 seconds, the avatar will strike the enemy champion that dealt the most damage to the target ally during that time, dealing 300/475/650 + (40% AP) magic damage.
If the target ally is killed during this time, the avatar will immediately strike the enemy champion that dealt the killing blow, dealing 300/475/650 + (40% AP) true damage.
If Kayle casts Divine Judgment on herself, its damage and cooldown are reduced by 50%.
Range: 800
Targeting Type: Targeted
Cooldown: 90/75/60
Cost: 100/75/50 mana