Kai'Sa is a hard carry champ and has potential to be an absolute nightmare, but she takes time to reach her full potential. The key is to play safe and wait for your opponents to slip up or for your team to set you up. At full build, you'll be able to melt tanks and delete anyone squishier.

Keystone
Fleet Footwork is overall the best keystone for Kai'sa at the moment. It keeps her healthy in lane which allows her the stay longer and stay safer. This is especially important because Kai'Sa lacks both an escape and crowd control.

Press the Attack is good if the enemy team has a multitude of tanks or one in particular you are really worried about, but in doing so you are sacrificing lane survivability.

Primary Tree
Presence of Mind allows Kai'Sa more flexibility than other options. Her mana costs are high and her ultimate is her best means to engage and escape. This rune will cover you from having to supplement her mana pool with items and give you more options to think creatively with her ultimate.

Alacrity grants permanent attack speed. This works perfectly into Kai'sa kit with both her Passive and her Supercharge (E).

Coup De Grace helps Kai'Sa "pop" enemies. It becomes especially noticeable when paired with her Passive stacks or her Void Seeker (W).

Secondary Tree
Celerity is the go to for most ADCs. However, it works especially well with Kai'Sa because Supercharge (E) temporarily increases her movement speed. At max level, Supercharge (E) can lend Kai'Sa's first basic attack a bonus 70 AD. The bonus granted from Celerity's combination with Supercharge (E) decays quickly so it must be utilized fast. Sadly, movement burst from Killer Instinct (R) does not proc Celerity's bonus.

Gathering Storm is a must for any carry. The increased stats as the game extends is especially useful as Kai'Sa only gets better the later a game goes on.

Passive
Scales with AP
Innate: Kai'Sa's basic attacks do increased damage based on her AP and the amount of stacks already on the target.
Living Weapon: Abilities can evolve based on bonus stats.
Caustic Wounds: Kai'Sa's basic attacks and W as well as nearby allies' immobilizing effects at Plasma stacks that last for 4 seconds. The 5th stack consumes all stacks and dealing damage.



Q - Icathian Rain
Scales with AD and AP
You can use your Q to farm as well as harass enemy laners. Just watch your range because it targets at random. The fewer targets in range, the fewer for the game to pick from.

Note: If you're going to dive an enemy under tower, make sure they aren't surround by minions first.

Evolves with 100 bonus AD.
Evolved Q fires 10 missiles instead of 6.



W - Void Seeker
Scales with AD and AP
Applies 2 stacks of Plasma and applies True Sight. Her W is a good way to get additional poke damage from the safety of distance.

Note: It can be a good engage when pair with her ult, however, the more stacks on the target when Void Seeker lands, the more damage it will do.

Evolves with 100 bonus AP.
Evolved W applies 3 stacks of Plasma instead of 2 and refunds 50% of cooldown if hitting a champion.



E - Supercharge
Scales with bonus attack speed.
Gain movement speed for a short duration, becoming unable to attack or use abilities during this time to charge. Once charged, gain temporary attack speed. Useful for dodging abilities and chasing/running from enemies. Charge time decreases and movement speed increases with attack speed. Supercharge's cooldown decreases 0.5 seconds with each basic attack.

Evolves with 100 bonus attack speed.
Evolved E grants invisibility while charging up.



R - Killer Instinct
Scales with AD and AP
Kai'sa has no real escape until she gets her ultimate and even then it's a toss up on whether or not you want to use it aggressively or defensively. This can be extremely wasteful if you do not manage her mana pool, so make sure you are landing your shots and picking your dives wisely. Because you are not building crit and are, instead, building straight damage, the shield received is extensively larger than in a crit build.

Note: Keep an eye out for waves of purple to radiant from Kai'Sa, as it will indicate the direction of an enemy that has had a Plasma stack applied and you can ult to them. It happens whether or not you are in ultimate range, so you may need to close the gap first with her E or a well timed flash.

Starting Order
Always start your Q. It can be used to both farm and harass enemy laners. Between the cooldown times and mana costs, it is the best option.

Starting W Second
-Distant poke
-Significant early level damage
-22 second cooldown
-55 mana cost

Starting E Second
-Dodge skillshots
-Increased attack speed
-16 second cooldown (lowered by 0.5 with each basic attack)
-30 mana cost


Pre-Level 6
To combat longer cooldown times, I put two points into Q and W before level 6 instead of 3 into Q.


Post-Level 6
Whether you max W or E second is preference of playstyle. Both options have pros and cons.

Maxing W Second
-Prioritizes burst damage
-Distant poke
-AD and AP damage with extremely high scalings
-More True Sight against stealth opponents
-22/20/18/16/14 second cooldowns

Maxing E Second
-Prioritizes consistent damage output
-Dodge skillshots/burst of movement speed
-Increased attack speed
-Faster tower taking
-16/15.5/15/14.5/14 second cooldown (lowered by 0.5 with each basic attack)

Start
Doran's Ring makes trading in lane and last hitting easier as you can use your Q to farm as well as harass.

Rush
Stormrazer will give you a better, single-item power spike than any other item in the game. Paired with a Pickaxe, you will be able to evolve your Q quickly.

Next
Though Guinsuoo's is good for stacking your Passive, Nashor's Tooth is by far the better option for a second item. Even before its completion, the bonus attack speed, ability power, and cooldown reduction are all vital to your growth and kit synergies Once finished, it will increase auto attack damage as well as scale with your entire kit. Pair with an Amplifying Tome to evolve your W.

Finally Guinsuoo's
Use your Pickaxe and Amplifying Tome to build a Guinsuoo's Rageblade.

Boots
Sorcerer's Shoes gives the best damage output per second, but useless until you build AP. Whereas Berserker's Greaves allows a faster E evolution but sacrifices overall damage.

Finishing the Build
Purchase order based on need, but make sure to build both. Each of your Q rockets deliver an individual stack of Black Cleaver's armor reduction passive. Void Staff adds magic penetration to EVERYTHING you do.

For A Healthy 40+min Baron Solo
Stormrazer can later be swapped out for a Bloodthirster if you need more survivability. IF YOU SWAP: You can easily solo a 40+ minute Baron or Elder Drake, even doing them back to back.

Elixirs
Elixir of Sorcery will significantly increase your damage output and buff your entire kit. Elixir of Wrath on the other hand is rather useless unless you've swapped out Stormrazer for a Bloodthirster.

Is Heal Best?
What spell you take should be reliant on both the enemy team comp and your own playstyle.

Heal is generally the default for an ADC. It's a great source of burst healing and slight speed increase.

Barrier is especially helpful against assassins and burst damage. If you can see it coming, you can pop Barrier first. Especially usefull against Zed and Talon ults.

Teleport is a decent spell for those who want more map pressure and are willing to join fights or help manage the map.

Pros
-Has the ability to hard carry a game
-Burst damage
-Versatile playstyles
-High potential to outplay opponents
-AD and AP scalings
-Solo late game objectives

Cons
-Difficult early game
-Peaks late
-No escapes
-No crowd control
-Items are expensive
-Difficult learning curve

Who Works Best With Kai'Sa?
Kai'Sa shines best with champs that can lock down opponents with hard crowd control. Any action that immobilizes enemies will add a stack of Kai'Sa's passive. This will allow her to stack it much faster as well as allowing her to ult to anyone with a stack within range.

Immobilizing effects include: charm, fear, knock-up, root/snare, stasis, sleep, stun, suppression, suspension, and taunt.

Team Challenges
Sometimes your biggest challenge will not be that your team is behind, but convincing them to stay in the game. Kai'Sa, by nature, takes time to reach her potential. This means, when behind, it takes even longer. However, if you can convince your team to hold out, the longer the game lasts, the more likely you are to win. Until that nexus falls, there's still a chance.

This is a very extensive guide on how to play Kai'Sa bot. However, I feel it can still be improved from it's current spot.

To Do List:
Vs. Champion Matchups is one thing I hope to expand upon.

I have a few other Kai'Sa builds for other roles I will add in time, including off-meta ******** that's not good, but it's still fun to pull into non-competitive matches. I always enjoy playing with different builds so I'll share good ones as I find them.

I may add more, in-depth explanations on runes, I've tried multiple things in the Practice Tool to find the best in various situations and this is what I believe they are.


Hopefully you've found this guide helps. Leave feedback if you'd like.

I play way too much Kai'Sa. Someone please send help or chromas.