Hello guy's! I'm Sanmedina, a noob LAS toplaner that likes screwing around with Kayle. This is a fun build i came up with after the rune revamp that actually sinergizes pretty well with Kayle's powerspikes and overall playstyle.

Kayle has always been misunderstood and believed to be best built as a bruiser, but lately high elo solo Q players have showed us that her ult is wasted when used on herself if she gets more than one defensive item. Logic is simple; giving 3 seconds of invulnerability to a tanky champ won't change much in a fight, since it is already rarely focused and takes a long time to kill. Also, 3 seconds of mediocre damage is still mediocre damage.

Kayle can grow into one of the highest sustained damage champions in lategame, and given the fact that most of that damage is also AOE, if you build full damage after 3 to 4 items you get to a point when you can 100 to 0 a carry (Or more if they position poorly) in less than your ultimate's uptime. In synthesis, you are a self peeling hypercarry that with good damage prediction for ult timing can win almost every fight.

That's where the gold earning part of this build comes into place. Simply put, the faster you get those 4 vital items to outdamage everyone the more likely you are to win a match. More standard rune perks like the burst and enabling you get from press the attack (That is an underestimated support rune IMO) and the 30-80% atack speed you get from lethal tempo are far outwheigh by being able to get damage items earlier, specially in this short match meta we currently are.

Please bear in mind this is not good for planned team comps where you should be building tankier and peel the carries instead, and also this is a more mechanically intensive build than standard top Kayle builds given how much you depend on ult timing to actually bring your damage into a fight.

Most Kayle top players either opt for permanent E with CDR cap or full on-hit items. The thing that makes this build so much efficient is that your gold earning item gives the much needed 10% CDR to reach the cap while also letting you get more useful boots as a defensive item rather than wasting that slot for the ionian 10% CDR they ussually have to get.

I recommend rushing Frost Queen's Claim first since it's a cheap item with good stats and also improves your gold generation by a lot.

The second core item, Nashor's tooth does not leave much to discuss since it's been a vital item on kayle for ages since not only it gives the 3 most important stats on kayle (atack speed, AP and CDR) but also makes your autoatacks scale with AP, pretty much like a second free E.

Now here's where the discussion starts; since kayle does not have any significant AD scaling (Her q has 100% AD scaling but since it is not such a spammable skill it makes it kinda useless) building on-hit effects to be procced with her E is a lot more efficient. Also, the three items that give on-hit damage give atack speed, and in guinsoo's case AP, which you would want to build naturally into Kayle anyway.
For the problem of which ones you would choose, you almost always wanna get 2 of the 3 possible items into your build, sometimes taking only one in turn for a damage situational item (Which we will cover later).
You should ALWAYS take guinsoo's, it has amazing stats for kayle and it has a really good gold-damage correlation once you get more than two hits off (You are aiming for long trades anyway) and it has an outrageously powerful passive after you stack it 6 times that potentiates your other on hit items.
Even though Guinsoo's is such an important item, in a lot of matches it should be bought after buying another On-Hit item to get the most out of its passive. Then, on the one hand you have Wit's end that lets you steal MR from your opponent, making it a good item both against heavy MR as heavy magic damage. On the other hand you have Blade of the Ruined King, that applies 6% of the target's HP as physical damage on hit, making it great against tanks. The amazing thing about BOTRK is that once you have Guinsoo's and stack it 6 times (Which at that point in the game takes you like 2.5 seconds tops) you are actually applying 12% of the target's HP. Now take also into account that at that point you will have 3 AS items, so you will be applying that 12% around 2-3 times a second. What does that mean? it means that if you only count that 12% and let aside all the AP damage from your E, other On-Hit effects and base AD BOTRK's passive alone can 100 to 0 any champion no matter the HP in 2.77 seconds (Not counting armor but you get the point, that's a lotta extra damage!)

Now it comes the most complicated part; the situational item. You will always build one of the ones i listed, but if the game gets to the "super duper late night time" kind of game and you have 2k gold or so to spare when on full build, you should sell Frost Queen's since you won't be needing the gold passive anymore and get any 10% CDR item you feel like (My favourite for that case is Zhonya's, but ZZ rot or omwhrecker are amazing tools to end a game too).

Now, getting in depth for the items, you should choose between two basic paths: Glass cannon or ummmm... a glass cannon made out of a slightly less fragile kind of glass maybe?
Anyway, you could consider hextech gunblade a balanced path between the two, in which you take advantage of your insane damage as a sustain tool to outlast everyone in a fight. But remember, don't take the gunblade if you already took BOTRK or if you are against heavy CC, CC counters lifesteal naturally so it becomes a wasted stat.

for the rest of the situational items:

GUARDIAN ANGEL: Stats are terrible, both gold and slot unefficient, the passive is useful against CC and burst comps though.
SUNFIRE CAPE: decent stats and is a very effective way of telling melee champs to GTFO. Not really that useful for Kayle lategame though
THORNMAIL: let's be honest, the damage passive is garbage, but the grievous wounds make it so champs like Xin Zhao or Warwick can't outsustain you anymore.
LOCKET OF THE IRON SOLARI: An extra shield and good defensive stats. Can also be used to peel other carries.
RABADDON'S DEATHCAP: ONLY use it if the enemy is not getting any MR whatsoever.
Liandry's: If the enemy comp has a lot of hp but just a little bit of MR.
MERCURIAL SCIMITAR: kinda lame stats but QSS active is amazing
ZZ Rot or OHMWRECKER: if you got 2k gold or so after getting full build sell frost queen claim and use one of these as a game ending tool. Also they give movility and decent defensive stats.
Mallet: If you wanna AFK splitpush this item guarantees no one can escape from you in a 1v1 chase
Runaan's: Does not work well with this build but it gives insane wave clear and AOE teamfight damage potential
Black Cleaver: works well against medium armored targets, also makes 1v1 chases easier just as with mallet
Deadman's plate: awesome defensive stats, also the movement speed and burst from the passive are good to have.

PROS:


-Lategame BEAST
-Doesn't need outside peel sources
-Can abuse poor positioning of the enemy team, making it good in low elo
-Huge snowballing potential
-It doesn't hurt as much when you loose some CS
-Better sustain than standard Kayle builds
-Can be the nightmare of melee matchups
-Gold efficient/cheap items make you get to your powerspikes sooner
-Your lane has a lot of gank potential

CONS

-Destroyed by ranged or high movility matchups.
-Not as much late game damage as standard toplane Kayle.
-AOE damage becomes less effective the higher you climb in ELO.
-Glass cannon, and emphasis on the glass part.
-This build is designed for solo Q, but it is not that useful for team comps.
-You get less AP on this build than you ussually would, making your W not that great.
-You'll probably get flamed for not being a tool and picking lethal tempo.
-If you can't time your ult correctly, you won't be able to teamfight at all.