Welcome to the League of Legends Champion Spotlight featuring Kayle, the Judicator.
As you can see, Kayle has received a brand new model, animations, particles, and sounds, as well as a comprehensive re-work on her abilities.
There were a few goals with these ability tweaks: We wanted to make her more powerful without items while also lowering her ridiculous late-game power when fully stacked.
To do this we completely re-made her passive, lowered the damage amplification on Reckoning, and lowered a couple of her ability power ratios.
To compensate, we improved her mana costs and base values on most of her abilities.
Generally, she should be more of a threat early game and less nightmarish late.
Kayle has an entirely new passive. Holy Fervor causes Kayle’s attacks to shred a percentage of the target’s armor and magic resist.
This shred stacks multiple times and lasts a few seconds.
Reckoning damages and slows target enemy, also giving Kayle bonus damage against the target.
The most notable changes to this ability are a significant increase to the missile speed and target slow, while lowering the damage amplification.
Divine Blessing heals target ally and increases its movement speed.
The remade version significantly increases the power of the haste but lowers its duration, while also increasing the cooldown to make her less sustainable in lane.
Righteous Fury empowers Kayle for a few seconds, giving her a ranged attack with deals bonus magic damage that splashes onto nearby enemies.
The major changes in the re-work are more damage and splash range while decreasing the cooldown and AP ratio.
Kayle’s ultimate is Intervention. Intervention completely shields target ally from all damage for a few seconds.
This ability is unchanged in the remake.
Kayle functions well in any lane, solo or duo, as either a magic-damage carry or a support champion.
Let’s start by looking at her supportive aspects in bottom lane.
I hit Vayne with Reckoning, slowing her movement speed, and I turn on Righteous Fury to start dropping her health.
Thanks to the slow, Alistar walks into range for Headbutt and Pulverize, picking us up an easy kill.
We try to repeat our success on Sona.
Even though she Flashes away, the slow from Reckoning and the haste on Alistar from Divine Blessing allow him to catch up and Headbutt her backward.
Stuck inside of our team, I pick up the kill with help from Righteous Fury.
Because you can heal yourself and slow an enemy, you can always bait kills with your jungler nearby.
I run from Urgot as he chases me until I notice Amumu coming in from the side.
Once he’s joined the fray, I jump onto Urgot with Reckoning and then Exhaust, crushing his health with Righteous Fury.
Never assume that Intervention can save you from everything.
Urgot grabs me with his ultimate and though I can turn invulnerable and run, Divine Blessing is only good for quick escapes, not long chases.
Kayle performs a typical damage dealer role for her team in midgame.
I tag Taric with Reckoning, allowing us to chase as I destroy his health pool with Righteous Fury.
We land a stun onto Mordekaiser and keep the damage output on. Note that I actually back off partway through the fight.
Seeing him try to assault me, I don’t know the state of his cooldowns on Ignite or Children of the Grave and don’t want to give up a free kill.
I meet up with Gragas in bottom lane. As he’s getting chased by Kog’Maw I haste him out of the fight with Divine Blessing.
I then look to hunt down a kill since I know I can take them. I see Galio turn for Resolute Smite and back up to dodge it.
I know Kog’Maw can’t escape me so I run toward Galio to make him retreat farther away from the fight.
Then I turn to fight Kog’Maw. Leading with Reckoning, I assault him with Righteous Fury. Note that I move in between attacks.
I want to make it difficult for Kog’Maw to land Living Artillery on me, just in case someone else comes into the fight.
You should use Intervention to prevent damage, not to save someone from near-death.
Right as Ezreal gets swapped into the enemy team, I tag him with Intervention.
He withstands all of Urgot’s damage until Amumu shows up, allowing us to destroy Urgot and then Galio with Reckoning and Righteous Fury.
Even though Kayle has lost some of her late-game power, she’s still completely capable of amazing damage output.
I get jumped by Mordekaiser and Galio. Anticipating burst damage, I target myself with Intervention, though I think it was premature.
I kill Mordekaiser with Reckoning and Righteous Fury and switch to Galio until I notice Kog’Maw below.
I kill him in about two seconds flat, but as I start to get low, I run from Galio and Taric.
Intervention is a great way to secure kills during a turret dive. Here Urgot swaps Gragas into the turret.
I walk up and take him down with Reckoning and Righteous Fury, making sure to turn myself invulnerable once I start coming under fire.
In a teamfight in river, I catch Kog’Maw out of position. Immediately, I destroy him with Reckoning and Righteous Fury.
After Galio uses his ultimate, I notice that Ezreal is low and likely to be the target of our enemies.
Sure enough, I block much of Mordekaiser’s burst with Intervention and heal him, having Ezreal survive the fight despite being in melee range.
Ultimately we kill three enemies with no deaths.
I go for an attack speed, on-hit Kayle, so I take attack speed marks, mana regeneration per level seals, flat cooldown reduction glyphs, and attack speed quintessences.
My masteries are 9/0/21, taking magic penetration in offense and taking improved Exhaust and Flash.
With my runes and masteries combined I have about 15% cooldown reduction.
I grab a Doran’s Ring to start and transition to an on-hit build. Berserker’s Greaves and Malady give me good early damage with Righteous Fury.
Nashor’s Tooth combined with my runes and masteries allows me to keep Righteous Fury up 100% of the time.
My final items are Madred’s Bloodrazor, Hextech Gunblade, and finally Void Staff, giving me a bit of sustenance, utility, and damage against any target.
Finally, let’s look at skill order. I max Reckoning right away, using it as my primary damage source early on.
I take one point in Divine Blessing early and then max Righteous Fury.
Since Righteous Fury basically scales with attack speed, I don’t really need points in it early, but Reckoning is always useful for up-front damage output.
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