Hello World, I'm a Kalista Top Enthusiast

I am by no means a League Pro or Diamond / Grandmaster Kalista Main or OTP, but I really like to play Kalista Toplane and analyzed a lot of Kalista games from "The Shy" and other notable Kalista players. And I want to share my knowledge and experience about Kalista Toplane with you. I am trying to update this guide through the season if there are changes that impact Kalista.

This is my first Mobafire guide so I hope you like it.
I want to start with a general summary about Kalista top and how she works.

Familiarize yourself with Kalistas spells before you start to read this guide.
Toplane Kalistas strength lies in the earlygame, if you think you can kill someone try it and you will get them. Your early game damage is really nuts in combination with Hail of Blades.
It's important to ward a lot because you are very weak to ganks. Your Late game damage is only good if you are feeded that means you need to play really aggressive in the early game.
Kalista Toplane needs a lot of practice and dedication to play efficiently, your best choice to play Kalista top is to play with a jungle premade because you connect your Ult with him.
She is also very good in "lower" elos becuase nobody knows how to play against her and how much damage she deals, you can use that to your advantage if you practice her for a little bit.

Here are some reasons why you should play Kalista top

- A lot of fun to play
- Huge outplay potential
- People don't know how to play against her
- You are a really annoying splittpusher for the enemy team

Itemization on Kalista is very important, one wrong buy can really mess up your laning because she relies on her Boots and one item powerspike with Sanguine Blade. It's important to get your boots early on because Kalista scales with the boot tier.
You should always start with Dorans blade because your E works with the omnivamp that gives you a really good sustain. Start with Cull if you are confident that you will stomp the lane and get 100cs really easy.
Kalista top has a very broad range of items that she can build, so always adapt to the enemy team with your items and thin carefully in what to build.

Ravenous Hydra:Take it if you really want to splitpush and need the live steal.

Runaan's Hurricane:If you wanna team fight a lot. Next year it will be cheaper, so some build paths may change.

Infinity Edge:It's just more damage if you wanna go crit Kalista.

Stormrazer:Also more damage. Going crit Kalista can be very funny if you are fed.

Thornmail:Take Thornmail as last item if you want the takiness against AD. You are not losing any damage real damage if you survive longer to auto attack. Change Thornmail to Randuins Omen if the enemys have many crit champions.

Spirit Visage:Take this also as the last item if you need the takiness against an AP heavy team. The healing effect will help you a lot because you will have one lifesteal item every game.

Every Champion has it's Pros and Cons, especially Kalista. It is important to know Kalistas weaknesses to fully master her.

Pros
- Neat mobility
- Insane Kiting
- Great splittpusher
- Has one of the best Barons (Haralds) / Drakes

Cons
- Very Sqishy
- Very Hard to learn
- Her jumps makes the auto-attacks Slower
- Enemys can easily catch up if they have some mobility

Early Game
As I mentioned Early Game is your strong point of the game, so try to harass the enemy toplaner and freeze the wave and poke them and of course try to kill them if you can. Just be as annoying as you can. Ward a lot and be careful of ganks. It's important to gain a lead in the early game otherwise you ar f*****.
Try to complete Boots and Sanguine Blade until 15-20min. When you have Sanguine Blade you are able to fight every Champion in the game, also try to get haralds to better splitt-push.

Mid / Late Game
There are two ways to play the Mid / Late Game;
1. Is to splitt-push if you are fed
2. Is to stay with your team if behind

1.You are able to 1vs2-3 if ahead. Try to use your TP smart and Use the Heralds. At 20min try to rotate lanes and take Towers with one Herald. You have great pushing power with Sanguines.

2.Try to farm and get your items in order to successfully Teamfight. Buy Runaan's if your really wanna Teamfight.

How to Poke
1.Hit the enemy Top Laner with some aa then hit a minion with an aa so that it is low enough to kill with E. The spears will be pulled out of the Minion and the enemy and you will get a reset. You should practice this in the practice tool to get a feeling when and how you do it. Watch gameplay from the "TheShy" or "Kalista Monster"( I just found him recently but he explains very good and structured).

2.Stack spears on a minion then throw your Q throgh the minion and the spears from the killed minion will stack at a target behind the minion. You can one shot the caster minions with a Lv.4 Q without items, hit the melee minions halflife and throw your Q through them and you almost killed the whole wave.( You can watch TheShy doing that, he perfected that technique).

3.Use your W on the later leves to get vision, one accidental death can loose you the game.