Explanation of Upcoming Kayle Changes

By the medium of an extremely long post, Shurelia has introduced us to a bit more information regarding the long postponed Kayle Remake.

Shurelia breaks down each skill, point for point, and discusses and explains the intended changes it is going to under go. The newest chunk of information to mine out of the post is that the currently slated new passive for Kayle is a stacking Magic Pen / Armor  Pen Buff that she can temporarily transfer this buff to an ally.

Keep in mind that all of this information is subject to change, but what do you think of how the new Judicator is shaping up?

"Hi Warbear,

I'm really sorry you feel that way, I can understand people being upset from the changes as they appear to be very thoughtless and un-impactful. I really want to take the time explain the changes and intent behind them which should provide some better context to why those decisions were made, and hopefully that'll help with the perception.

Holy Fervor

Holy Fervor is a problematic spell from a design standpoint since it grants a player a large amount of selfish, bonus gold. While it may not seem problematic at the surface, this causes the character to have to be intentionally a lot weaker in the early stages of the game and incentivizes hard farm to the point that the character's gold bonus causes them to quickly snowball out of control. We see the same problem with Jax who becomes intentionally weak early with the exception of stacking runes of the free-gold type. Overall we would like to remove these types of passives from the game whenever possible.

Reckoning

Reckoning was an ability intended to help Kayle sustain DPS onto a target, however since the missile speed was incredibly slow, the effect had some trouble kicking in when you really wanted it to. Because of this we increased the missile speed by about 30%, in addition the increased slow amount should help contribute more to "supportive type" players.

Divine Blessing 

This change reflects the direction we would like to take support-type characters in. Our intention is for all support-characters to have dual-type builds based on purchased items. The base values of Divine Blessing increasing, will greatly help supportive characters (who want to not compete for farm with their teammates), and lowering the AP ratios in compensation enables support-types to purchase more team-centric items (which we intend on introducing more of).

The increase in mana cost also creates a heavier attrition state in the early game, meaning that player cannot simply spam to stay in lane. Doing so should run the player out of mana which forces them back. (We have the same intent towards all other types of this as well). So while this IS a nerf for offensive type characters support power, we are compensating with reduced costs to their offensive types abilities, which we DO want people to spam. Since supportive-types can also itemize regen heavily, this will be less detrimental to them. I can write a whole article on this so I'll leave it at that for now.

The movement speed was also changed to a long duration MS buff to a burst MS buff, which feels a lot more clutch in a defensive sense and is much stronger for engaging a fight as well.

Righteous Fury

The cooldown was reduced drastically on this spell to help with its total uptime. This will really help Kayle in the early laning phase. In addition, the mana cost was also reduced so you should never feel bad about using it!

The intent of the spell is for Kayle to be much more powerful than a standard carry (early) in combat power with the spell active in addition to using Reckoning, but weaker without it. The counter-gameplay is to try to bait the Kayle's Righteous Fury. 

With the cooldown reductions and 40% CDR (Which is core.) The spell should have 100% uptime, which will greatly contribute to teamfights. 

The damage was also increased and the range, to really give it that "ranged carry power" that it deserves.

She still benefits from hybrid items here, since she gains damage from both AP/AD and hybrid items have superior gold efficiency due to the odd stat combinations. (not to mention more damage on your Qs)

Intervention 

No changes here, with the exception of a possible mana cost reduction. The spell should function as a team utility-saver for support-types, and a Tryndamere-esque ulti for attacker-types.

New Passive 

Currently Kayle's new passive gives her a rageblade style armor/magic pen buff. This should greatly help out Kayle since its difficult for her to itemize penetration with her optimized build paths for hybrid items. In addition, for a supportive twist, anytime she casts a spell on an ally she "throws" the buff onto them as well, temporarily granting her targeted ally her passive.

This is of course still in testing, so the numbers and exact mechanics aren't set into stone.


I hope this helps with understanding, and I really encourage you guys to continue to be critical of our changes. Overall it leads to a more fun game for everyone. = )"

- Shurelia, Associate Game Designer, via the official forums.