League of Legends - Kalista/Annie vs. Ashe/Alistar

• published: 02 Dec 2014
• views: 11

I take the new character to the bot lane filled with characters whose names start with the letter A. As if being the only one without a pulse wasn't awkward enough. People have pointed out for the longest time that ADC was the only role without a knock up for Yasuo centered teams (Draven was the closest), and Riot addressed that point with the creation of Kalista. I mention some of the things about Kalista in the video, but here I go again. Out of the ADCs, she is the best at kiting as you see me do to Alistar when he is trying to chase me down. It is extremely difficult for melee characters to reach her unless they have some form of CC at their disposal, and I'm not sure if slows interact with her hops, which they damn well should. As for the Q vs. E debate, to summarize everything in a comparison against Twitch: Kalista has no AS steroids to increase the number of spears in an opponent. She does not have a slow on her W that adds 2 spears (in fact her slow is on her E). She does not have a stealth move to allow her to start firing at extremely short range to rack up the spears in opponent. Basically, she is not even close to being like Twitch, and that is why E maxing is not viable on her. As for W vs. E second, I think that would depend on the course of the game. Maxing the W would work if you can bully your opponents and are very familiar with your partner. Maxing E would work if you need more objective control or have a LOT of CC on your team to take advantage of it (like a Leona support). You only get a return from it by stacking your spears, which is not easy to do. As for team fights, Warwick and Annie can lock someone down for me to stack some spears, but if my damage is sufficient, I can get the kill by just auto attacking and landing my Q. Olaf can charge the back line while Kha tries to pick off the guys who break from the fight. I don't really think there is a possible way for the enemy to win here as Olaf can out split push whoever they send while we have the team fight advantage. Plus if I was far enough ahead to flash into the dragon pit without hesitation, that alone is a bad enough sign for the enemy. And the final point I'd like to make about Kalista is that here we have yet another character with HP shred. The ability is so damn common these days that the health stacking characters like Mundo are being indirectly nerfed with each addition. It would be nice if there were some sort of counterplay to it, such as an item with a passive that reduces % HP damage, but I'm not really holding my breath on this one.